


death comes on soundless feet

by raffinit



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Banshee!Sylvanas, Daughter of the Sea!Jaina, F/F, Fae Queen!Sylvanas, Fey AU, Sailor!Jaina
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2019-10-20 07:32:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17618141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raffinit/pseuds/raffinit
Summary: Jaina has spent most of her life on the sea. She knows the waves better than the lands of her home. She knew the lure of the ocean waves long before she knew the temptation of human touch.And then one day, she heard the call of something else.A loose interpretation of a fae!AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I take no responsibility for this mess.
> 
> I blame the discord in entirety.

There were things in the woods no one spoke of. Tales told by candlelight and fireplaces; stories of those who wandered too far into the trees, of men and women lured away by the call of something older than time itself. Every child in the village knew the stories.

Every child in the village knew of the Banshee.

Jaina was born with the sea in her veins.

The brine and breeze of the ocean in her lungs, the rock of the ship as her lullaby. She took her first steps on the deck of her father’s ship, sang the shanties of his men as her first words. She knew the call of the seas before she knew the call of the land.

Jaina knew the lure of the ocean waves long before she knew the temptation of human touch.

And then one day, she heard the call of something else.

\----------

Somewhere in the woods, there was a faerie ring.

Jaina knew of it — everyone in the village knew of it. They knew better than to go looking for it. Some spoke of glimpses of it from between the trees; pristine and harmless, nothing more than a slab of limestone polished smooth from the years, ringed by caps in blood-red.

Harmless, truly, in the same way dancing flames or the glint of a knife tempted curious little hands.

Not many dared to take a second look. Those who did never looked away again.

In daylight, the forest was nothing more than grass and trees. It was a place of bounty; to forage and hunt and harvest wood for homes and hearths. It was a place where children played by the treelines and plucked berries from bushes, coming away with hands and mouths and teeth stained red.

In the dark of night, they locked their windows and barred their doors, and warned unruly children of She Who Walks in the Shadows.

Ghost stories.

Tales to frighten children into obedience.

Jaina was too much for the sea to heed them. She took to her father’s old ship more than she did the village; thought more fondly of the Sable Rose than she did Proudmoore Keep. The tides and changing winds took her beyond the shores of Kul Tiras for many months at a time, and it was easy enough for Jaina to begin to prefer the distance from her homeland.

Still she loved her mother dearly, still she came home to visit as much as she dared, but who else could tame the seas and ride the waves than Daelin Proudmoore’s last living child?

Who else could call their Fleet home, untouched and unscathed by the raging storms?

When the moon was high and the tides were restless, Jaina sang to soothe them. On the clearest nights and the darkest skies, her voice carried across the waters like sacred hymns that swept aside the snarling waves and tempered the whirling breeze.

She was the Daughter of the Sea, and when she sang, it would listen.

When she sang, the oceans of her eyes woke, bright and gleaming as the moon itself.

Sometimes, when she sang, she thought the waves sang back.

\-------

 

It had been too long since she had made landfall back home. The waves had a way of whiling away the days and weeks and months, and when Jaina finally felt the pull of Kul Tiran shores, she was welcomed home with open arms.

Katherine Proudmoore met her at the port. As Jaina descended the ramp from the Sable Rose, she found her mother rushing forward to meet her. They embraced tightly, and Jaina revelled in the familiar scent of her mother’s perfume and the warmth of her touch.

That night, the village raised their voices and sang well into the night — the Daughter of the Sea had come home. Kul Tiras was, if only for a moment, whole again.

The celebrations ran on into the week. Endless, it seemed. Dancing and singing and chanting over mugs of ale and port and wine. Everyone wanted a moment of her time; everyone listened for a tale or two she would spare. They listened, rapt like children, as she told stories of distant lands and exotic creatures. Swooned and cheered when she sang the songs of the seas and led the shanties of her men.

They cried when she sang the mournful tune of Daelin Proudmoore’s fall, of the lives of her brothers lost too quickly to raging storms and the dark call of the ocean’s Abyss. The same songs she had sung for too many years to count — songs she always carried with her.

It was a bittersweet homecoming as it always was.

Here, in her homeland, in her room at the Keep — it felt like a prison. A cage of her past; of memories she thought were lost at sea. She walked the streets of the village, saw the friendly and awestruck faces of her people and felt like a creature on display. A separate entity all on her own — a freak of nature. Out on the seas, her men revered her in different ways. Respected her for her skills as a sailor more than the Daughter of the Sea; but still, they were sometimes slack-jawed and starry-eyed when she walked the length of the helm and sang. Still, they clapped her on the shoulder, affectionate and ribbing. Those who had served longest with her father would ruffle her hair gently.

She was, in some sense, an equal to the sailors aboard the Sable Rose.

At the very least, she did not feel so strange and foreign.

Her mother had told her all too often that she had been spoiled by the ocean, of its vastness and endless directions. That she set her sights on far too distant shores and forgotten what it was like to plant her feet on solid ground.

It was all too much.

Jaina slipped away one night, hidden in the shadows and beneath the low hood of her cloak. With such merriment abound and most of the village’s attentions drawn towards the stories told and shanties sung in the taverns by her men, she would not be missed.

Her eyes caught the forest edge where it met the beach, and her feet guided her without thought. She walked a path along the treeline, eyes turned towards the broad expanse of the glistening sea. Its waves rippled and the starlight blinked across its murky canvas, and as she stood at the forest edge, she felt a great longing take hold of her bones.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a flicker of light.

Jaina blinked.

She turned her head slowly, watching the stillness of the trees, the silence of its creatures. The flicker rose again, like the blinking of fireflies — only now, its light was a vivid blue.

The will-o'-the-wisp.

Ghost light.

Fool’s fire.

They danced before her, swaying to a rhythm entirely their own. It had been years since she’d seen them last; when she had been no more than a girl, chasing spirits and storybook endings in the moonlight. She remembered her youth spent standing at the edge of the dock, at the precipice of the cliffside, watching the waves lure away the ships onto the tide.

She looked at the wisps and saw the same temptation.

The wisps danced and fluttered before her like delicate bird wings, speaking in the quiet chatter of Living Things that weaved between the realms of Here and There. She moved closer and they flitted away, swaying back in whenever she paused too long. With each step closer she took, they floated backwards with a whisper or a croon. Jaina paused briefly, darting a glance behind her towards the village; the faint lantern light of homes dotting their windows. The rowdy singing and chattering heard from the great hall in the middle of the square and the taverns around it.

She turned back to the forest, and it was still. Silent and waiting.

The pull of it was familiar.

Jaina took another step.

Their soft blue light tempted her further and further into the woods, through the dense mass of trees and bushes, with looming branches that swept across her shoulders and head like the caress of ghostly hands. The wisps hummed a song she couldn’t quite hear, only knew that it was a song she had to chase. The song became a low, dulcet voice; feminine and fleeting through the trees. She pushed further and further away from the village, away from the warm lights. The undergrowth beneath her feet hardly made a sound as she passed, until the huddled treeline began to give way to a sparse row of trees, withered and leaning.

She stepped forward through the trees — and then she was in a clearing.

Before her, she saw the faerie ring.

Within it, a spectral figure illuminated in moonlight.

The woman sat in the middle of the circle; not entirely present, and yet not altogether ethereal. She perched atop the polished rock face as if it were a throne, her cape rippled black as night behind her, and in the shadows, it unfurled like velvet wings. Her armour was tooled leather and gleaming silver, made from the very mists and moonlight that shrouded her. The hood pulled low over her face did not hide the elegant silhouette of her features; her aristocratic nose and feline eyes.

In her hands, she carved an arrow.

When she spoke, it was like a thousand leaves rustling in the wind, like the howl of sea-breeze against the window panes. It filled the space of her throat in a tremoring croon. “Such an hour to be wandering the woods, child.” Between her fingers, a blade flashed. “Your mother must be worried.”

She looked up through her hood, and in those blazing embers of her eyes, Jaina found herself rooted in place. Hair of silver threads spread like veins, like roots taking hold of her neck and shoulders, and they seemed to move as if afloat in water.

“Tides,” Jaina gasped. The woman did not look like the mournful hag the sailors would speak of; she did not wear tattered rags and sported a face so gaunt it was only bones.

She looked, to Jaina, like a dream.

Perhaps she should have seen something more wicked.

Still, Jaina knew exactly who — _what_ — she was.

It was pulled from her without thought. “Banshee.”

The woman inclined her head. “I am.” The arrowhead glinted in the moonlight, steel so bright it sparked like silver.

Jaina couldn’t find the strength to pull her gaze away. “I hear your cries on the waters. I’ve heard your wail across the seas. You herald the death of fine sailors."

“It was my song that led you here, was it not? Whose death do I herald now?” The Banshee smiled a smile full of teeth, razor sharp and deadly. "I am many things, child. Dark Lady, hag, witch. Here, I am Queen.” She swept one hand grandly about them, gesturing to the dancing fireflies and winking wisps.

Jaina was no fool. She did not look away and did not blink.

Under Jaina’s unwavering stare, the Banshee Queen tilted her head slowly, thoughtful. “Are you lost, little one?”

“No.”

The Banshee’s voice dropped into a low coo. “Then did you come to find me?”

With care, Jaina asked, “Who have I found?”

Blinking, the Banshee Queen sat up, crossing her legs in an elegant sweep that made the shadows dance. Faced with the Dark Lady’s steady gaze now, Jaina could see the true beauty of the creature before her — the long curve and arch of her brows, the tapered length of her ears. The unnatural hue of her skin; so close to human flesh and yet too much like the ghoulish shade of something entirely Otherwise.

Voice like velvet, she purred, “Clever little thing. Give me yours and I will give you mine.”

Jaina hesitated. She knew the stories well enough; the being before her was a _fae_ — otherworldly and unpredictable. Dangerous. Each word she spoke came from a tongue of lies, each moment Jaina spent near her was only feeding into the influence the Banshee had on her. To _give_ the fae her name would be to surrender her very soul.

The smile on the Banshee Queen’s face was knowing and coy. “Where has that clever tongue gone? Won’t you spare me this courtesy of giving me your name?”

Courtesy was key, and yet in excess was deadly.

Daring to lower her gaze long enough to dip low into a bow, Jaina spoke, “Forgive me my manners, but I daresay that I have asked you first.”

The Banshee Queen tilted her head, watching her with the calculating eyes of a predator gauging the worth of her prey. “How bold,” she murmured, and to Jaina’s ears it sounded like a breeze through the bushes. “How refreshing.”

“I mean no disrespect —”

“You meant some,” the banshee drawled, eyes like brightest amber. “How lucky it is for you that I am feeling generous tonight.” The arrow and blade in her hand were there one moment, and gone the next. She rose to her feet with the long-practised grace of royalty, and standing now, Jaina saw the full height of the Dark Lady, looming and broad.

Swallowing back the bile in her throat, Jaina tried again. “Forgive a humble sailor for her slights. I’m not much for the ways of the land. Surely, good Queen, you would spare a wandering traveller such a folly?”

The Banshee Queen smiled again, coy but deadly. A smile that could turn as fast as a viper’s strike. “Ah, but you are no lowly sailor, are you, little one?”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I have heard of you.” The Banshee Queen gave a haughty toss of her head.

Jaina tried to keep the surprise from her face and her tone even. “You...have?”

“I have heard _you_ ,” she clarified, and suddenly her eyes were bright as the stars, as the heart of the flames burning in the village. “Your voice on the waves as the tide washes in. Your call upon the seas when the clouds threaten to burst overhead.”

Still, Jaina frowned. “My call?”

The Banshee Queen tilted her head once more, her ears pricking with amusement. “Why — your _song_ , O Daughter of the Sea.”

Jaina’s breath hitched, and for an instant, she felt the lick of fear climbing up her spine. Was she trapped now? Had this all been nothing more than a vicious little game the Banshee played with all her prey? She tamped it down and schooled her features, but in the face of the Dark Lady she could already see triumph.

The daring in her blood flared.

“You know my name, then. You always have.”

The Banshee Queen’s smile was languid as her voice. “Perhaps. Speak it once, so that I might remember.”

Jaina eyed her sidelong. “I am no fool, Banshee. No wandering child you can beguile and trick.”

“And yet I have you here,” she said, folding hands that bled mists and shadows behind her back. “Have you come to make a wish, little one? Perhaps I shall grant it.” The Banshee Queen gave her an indulgent look, an amusement that wasn’t entirely friendly.

“What if I were to wish for your name, proud Queen?” Jaina asked, with a boldness she could not temper; with a thrust of her chin outwards.

Slowly, the smile on the fae queen’s face shifted into a chiding glance. “Careful, little one. You’ve spent too much time with the seas tamed to your whim. The laws of the land are not so fluid.”

Gritting her teeth and swallowing back the roil of fear and indignation in her belly, Jaina inclined her head. “Forgive me, Dark Lady,” she said tightly. “Again, I am but a humble sailor. My kind is not bred for the likes of court and royalty. We sail the seas and wander the shores. That is all we know.”

The Banshee Queen’s brow arched superciliously, and the fear returned with a vengeance. She loomed close then, skirting the edge of the ring, and Jaina felt the forest shift with her.

“I get the sense that you know more than you think, O Child of the Wind and Sea.”

She leaned forward then, so far Jaina thought for an instant that she would traverse the border of the ring. Instead, she hovered just so, her cloak unfurling like grasping claws encased in smoke. Her words came like winter’s first breath against Jaina’s cheek.

“So sweetly you sing for the ocean. Perhaps one day, you might sing as sweetly for me.”

A plume of smoke rose around her, the smell of the trees and the earth and cold steel of starlight enveloped the ring. It tickled her nose, and Jaina sneezed.

She opened her eyes and was alone.

\--------

She never spoke of her encounter with the Banshee.

She had returned with the dawn chasing her through the treeline, cresting over the horizon of the sea. Her mother pressed her at breakfast, and Jaina wondered for a moment what would have happened if she answered with truth. Instead, she spoke with the lazy shrug of a lie and told Katherine the same thing she always did when she climbed beyond the Keep walls and climbed the tallest towers to woo the rain.

“I took a walk by the water. It helps me when I can’t sleep.”

Katherine had pressed her lips together, doubt in the seafoam green of her eyes, but she did not press for more. For that, Jaina was grateful. She was a grown woman, not a child; not a girl growing into the burdens of her title. She was a sailor, a master of the seas. The sound of crashing waves met the echoes of her beating heart.

She knew the pull of the ocean. What was this pull of the land?

For days, Jaina did not sleep, only paced the length of her rooms and peered through the windows out towards the lush forest and its verdant glade. The distant curiosity was beginning to bloom in her chest, to fester like an open wound left too long unattended. She knew the feeling well. That hollow ache that began in the pit of her stomach and grew into the depths of her chest.

Longing. More so than childish curiosity and daring.

An increment of longing, steadily building behind her breast.

On the coldest night, when the skies opened to bless the earth with the cleansing drape of rain, Jaina heard the voice again. Low and keening; not quite a lament as it was a croon of invitation. She wasn’t sure if the song was meant for the gathering clouds or —

She gathered her cloak about her shoulders and made for the woods again. She walked until the rain had soaked into the fabric of her cloak and nightdress, hardly even felt the wet cling of them around her legs and shoulders and hair. She walked, as if led, as if tethered to an unseen thread winding deeper and deeper between the trees.

She walked and walked and walked, the deluge near-blinding as she stumbled among the thick press of trees.

She staggered out onto the clearing, pulling her cloak tight around her shoulders. The rain seemed to muffle and slow above the canopy of trees, like the sound of waves crashing against the rocks from beneath the waters. A drop landed on her nose, then her lashes, and when Jaina blinked them away, she saw through the burden of rain-heavy lids —

“Hello, little one.”

The Banshee Queen tilted her head curiously, arms folded behind her back again, skirting along the edge of the faerie ring. The rain did not seem to touch the confines of it; its blades of grass pristine and dry. There was no rain bogging down the Banshee’s immaculate armour, and once more Jaina wondered what sort of banshee this was; resplendent and mystifying.

She clicked her tongue, sharp like the snapping of twigs underfoot. “Such weather to be outside in. You’ll catch your death in this chill.”

The shiver that rode Jaina’s spine had little to do with the cold. “I heard your song.”

“Did you?” The Banshee Queen cooed, regarding her with the distinct intrigue of a feline. Her eyes stood out like blazing coal in the gloom. “Did you also hear me in the winds when you sail, child? Did you feel my breath guide your path?”

Jaina stood and stared. Her tongue could not be trusted at that moment; her words could not be lured from within her chest. Instead, she shrugged. Then she eyed the ring thoughtfully.

“Can you leave here?” she asked, and the Dark Lady looked at her with a quiet surprise. “Your faerie ring. I’ve heard you on the waters.”

“What do I get if I answer?” came the reply.

Pursing her lips, Jaina fussed at the frayed edges of her cloak and thought of the serene, feline smile on the Dark Lady’s lips. A sharp, quick thought flashed through her mind, and Jaina’s eyes widened. Was she going mad? “I — have nothing of value to offer you,” she stammered. The rain was beginning to weigh her down, and she could feel the dampness cling to her hair and skin.

“Oh, but don’t you?”

“No.”

Sultry and low, the Banshee Queen purred, “Is your name not something of value, Daughter of the Tides? Won’t you give it to me, then?”

Jaina nearly scoffed. She did not, for it would have been disrespectful, and the last thing you did to a _fae_ was disrespected them. Instead, she shrugged a shoulder again. “You ask for too high a price. My name and my life are all I have.”

“Then perhaps, an answer for an answer.” Spinning on her heels, her cloak rose like the spread of wings behind her once more; like tendrils unfurling to reach for Jaina.

With her heart in her throat, Jaina breathed, “What do you wish to know, Banshee Queen?”

One shadowed tendril reached out towards her from the ring. “Why did you come here, little one?” It uncurled around her head, reaching to brush against the barest edge of the hood pulled low over her face.

“I don’t know,” Jaina whispered, and truly, she did not. “Why did you call me here?”

The Banshee Queen paused, and the tendril recoiled back into her cloak. She regarded Jaina seriously, hands hidden behind her back again. It was only an instant, as if she had forgotten in that moment who she was, where they were.

Then she smiled again, full of guile. “Ah, but I did not.” The shadows gathered around her again, sparkling with twilight. “You came to me on your own feet; on your own will.”

“But I heard your song,” Jaina insisted, the smell of steel and starlight in her lungs again.

“Not many people heed such a call from a Banshee, little one.” The mists swallowed the banshee, until all Jaina could see were the twin embers of her eyes. “How was I to know that I would lure so sweet a fool as you?”

Overhead, lightning flashed and thunder snarled, and took with it the Banshee Queen.

 

\-------------

 

On the next turn of the tides, Jaina left. She could not linger for long; she who wasn’t made for the land, but the boundless reaches of the sea. Her mother, as always, frowned when she left, but nevertheless hugged her tight and kissed her brow. Katherine understood it well enough. She was the Daughter of the Sea. To keep them apart would mean asking Jaina to abandon part of her soul.

So she hoisted the sails of the Sable Rose on one cool, clear morning, and watched the shape of Kul Tiras fade into the distance. She kept the memory of her mother standing at the edge of the dock; growing smaller and smaller in the horizon, until she was nothing more than a speck, a ripple on the sea.

As they rounded the corner of the first looming bight, she heard the song upon the waves. Jaina looked up into the cliffed coastline, the crests of it shrouded in rolling mist and morning dew.

There in the fog — perhaps it was the sun? Cast against her back, it could deceive her — she saw the shape of a woman, garbed with armour made from the shadows.

The winds carried the voice down onto the seas, soft and full of longing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Daughter of the Sea is too curious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you and curse you Zellk for feeding me so many legendary pebbles
> 
> <3

The moon had swelled and waned a full cycle before Jaina returned to Kul Tiras. The journey home had been chaos — a chance encounter with pirates along the coast of Zul’Dare had left the Sable Rose shaken. Her rage atop the seas roiled the waves and curdled the clouds, and Jaina’s voice carried over the waters with the power of a thousand cannons bursting onto the ocean.

“Cut them down!” She snarled as thunder boomed overhead. “Make them rue the day they crossed the Rose!”

Their cannons fired back, but still the Sable Rose faltered, bursts of splintered wood filling the air as the troll ship tore into its side. Jaina’s eyes took on a vicious glow, so bright its colours swept across the seas in an eerie plume as she called the waves and winds to their aid. She climbed the helm and then up onto the shrouds as she raised her voice to meet the crash and roar of the storm.

By the time the seas had calmed, the Rose was left floundering along the shoreline of safety. Below the waves, the Abyss welcomed the troll ship’s remains with open arms. The familiar arched cliffs of the bay came into sight, and Jaina felt something unfathomable take hold of her.

Clinging to the tallest shroud, Jaina turned her eyes to the highest precipice, watching the shadows and mist with something like hope in her chest. There were no tendrils of smoke, no silhouetted armour against the light — no call from the trees. The childish hope died away into a familiar disappointment, and Jaina sighed.

Despite herself, she let her voice carry in the winds regardless. A soft hymn of thanks and grace to the waters, an exaltation of the tides. She sang so sweetly, so softly. The bustling men along the deck paused in their steps and turned their faces towards the sky, watching her as one would watch the heavens; reverent and wonderstruck.

She sang and sang, until the port emerged from the fog, and as the Sable Rose came to dock, she thought she saw a shadow in the trees.

 

\----------

 

The Sable Rose needed repairs that would see Jaina on Kul Tiran shores for weeks. It was just as well — her men needed the rest, and Jaina found herself not entirely distressed at being landlocked so. She indulged her mother’s harried questions and concerns; listened silently to her pleas to reconsider and return.

“Lay the sea to rest and come home,” Katherine begged. “You can still soothe the tides from the shore.”

Jaina sighed, weariness soaking deep into her bones as she rubbed at the building ache in her temple. “The sea is as much a part of me as I am of it,” she said patiently. “You know I can’t leave it behind any more than I can leave my heart on land.”

“Try,” her mother pressed. “You could be happy here, Jaina. If only you tried.”

Trying, she knew, meant marriage. Meant children. Meant idle responsibilities to a home and a husband.

The thought alone made Jaina’s skin crawl.

“I’m going for a walk,” she announced. “Don’t wait up for me.”

“But you just came home!” Katherine cried. “You need to rest —”

Jaina kissed her mother on the cheek and fled. She did not know what possessed her to head for the woods instead of the water; perhaps she did, but it was not a thought Jaina was willing to linger on. She climbed the knoll and disappeared between the trees, her feet guided on a path that was somehow etched into the corners of her mind.

The trees seemed to close around her, the path she’d come from now narrow and dark, consumed by leaves. Before her, the path continued, wide and bright.

Swallowing back the well of something in her throat, Jaina pushed on. There, up ahead, she saw the telltale signs of the faerie ring — the verdant green of the clearing, the blood-red of the ring itself.

A thrill ran through her.

When she stepped into the clearing, she saw the Banshee Queen there, standing with her hands behind her back once more, as if she had been expected.

She paused at the look on the fae’s face. “H-hi.”

“So the prodigal daughter has returned.” The armour she wore in the twilight was gone; in daylight, she stood swathed in the colours of the forest, tooled leather that seemed to be painted onto her body. Her hair was loose and gilded, twined thorns woven like the crown of the Old Gods adorning her head.

She looked exactly as Jaina would imagine the Queen of the Fae would look.

Her eyes, however, remained the same blazing embers.

Jaina frowned at the icy tone. Around her, the sunlight spilt in through the canopies, but even bathed in such warmth, the air between them was frigid and dark. “I — apologise if I’ve disturbed you. I’ll go —”

“I heard your song,” the Banshee Queen cut in. “I saw your ship return to the bay.” Her lips — had they always been so red? Had they always pursed like that, with that dimple in her cheek? — pressed into a thin lip of disapproval. “You sang for me, but too late, little one.”

A rush of heat rose in her cheeks, and Jaina sputtered, “I sing for no one but myself. I sing for the seas.”

A familiar twitch pulled the corner of the Queen’s lips, but her eyes remained cold. “You sang to the bay and to the highest peaks of the cliffs. You looked for me, and when you could not find me, you sang.”

“I always sing when I sail.” She skirted the edge of the ring, daring to step closer, only to skitter back when the Banshee Queen came to loom over her.

“But now you sing for me.” It was a certainty; an accusation.

Jaina looked away, took hold of the end of her braid and tugged at it. “...perhaps.”

“What was it that you would have asked of me, had I answered, little one?”

The question took Jaina by surprise, and it must have shown on her face, for the Banshee Queen tilted her head once more. Like a cat honing in on its prey. “I did not sing for a boon or a trade. I sang —” she paused. Why did she sing? Why had she lifted her voice up to the cliffs and sought the dark shadows?

Why, Jaina wondered, did she sing for the Banshee?

Eventually, she spoke, and it was at once a truth and a lie. “I sang to give thanks to the ocean. Nothing more.”

There was a pregnant pause between them; the sound of birdsong and insects chirping filling the space like a vacuum of noise. Eventually, the Banshee Queen spoke again with a sigh. “You trust in the seas too much, child. Soon enough the fates will turn it against you.”

“It runs in my veins the same as blood,” Jaina countered assuredly.

“And soon enough, won’t your blood run dry? Won’t it leave you in the same streams and rivers when you breathe your last?”

Jaina gave her a considering look. “Is that a fear or a promise, Banshee?” she hedged.

The woods around her fell silent. As still as the dead. The Banshee Queen loomed forward once more, and this time Jaina did not waver. She thrust her chin out and met the Queen’s gaze, blue to red; ice to fire.

“It is a truth,” the Banshee whispered, and around them the leaves carried her voice through the trees. “You mortals live such fleeting lives. Fleeting and fruitless, really.”

Perhaps it was the exhaustion weighing heavy on her shoulders, or perhaps it was the allure of something so deadly and beautiful being so close she could see the length of dark lashes, the flecks of gold amidst the amber. Whichever it was, it made Jaina’s chin thrust out further; it made her eyes hood.

It made her voice come out sultry and low, and far bolder than she likely should have been. “Is that what you offer to the villagers when you take them? Eternal life? Endless days in a garden of Eden?”

The Banshee’s gaze hooded the same, her voice lowered to match. “Is that what you’d like me to promise you?” The forest seemed to glow around her, an ethereal halo building around her head, gleaming off the gold of her hair; flaring out from the dark crown of thorns on her head.

The light made Jaina’s eyes water, and suddenly the memories from the morning came down like a wave crashing over her, pulling her under. She rocked back on her heels with a weary sigh and slumped down onto the ground in an ungraceful heap.

The Dark Lady blinked at the suddenness of it, leaning over Jaina slightly. Cautiously, she asked, “Have you lost your spine so literally, child?”

“I’m tired,” Jaina mumbled, blinking up at the radiant shadow looming over her. “I’d like to lie down for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

“No, little one,” the Banshee said, with such warmth it made Jaina’s neck prickle. “I do not.”

She eyed the Queen. “How do I know you won’t trick me? Will I wake to another realm, another universe? Another world where you and I are the same but too different?”

With an uncharacteristically grave look, the Dark Lady peered at her. The expression on her face was one indiscernible, and Jaina was too tired to press her mind to comprehend it. “You have my word,” she said, as quiet as the breeze between the blades of grass. “Rest, Sweet Daughter of the Tides. I will keep watch over you.”

Jaina sprawled out onto the grass and moss; plush beneath her and smelling like the earth and the trees and sharp steel somehow. It felt like the softest down and the richest silks. She pillowed her head on an arm and turned towards the ring — absolute trust, besides her name, was the last thing Jaina would give the Banshee. She startled when she found the fae doing the same; from the other side of the ring.

“What...are you doing?”

“Watching you.” It was coy and lilting, and the Banshee Queen shuffled in as close as she could from within the ring, until it was only the breadth of a red cap that separated them. “Was that not my promise?”

Sighing, Jaina turned onto her back and folded both her arms behind her head. “Are you always this insufferable with the villagers?” she murmured, the pull of sleep already beckoning for her in the pleasant warmth of the day.

“Only for the ones I like,” the Banshee Queen said, resting her head on a hand. Her crown of thorns remained impeccably in place; everything about her was impeccable.

Jaina puffed out a breath that might have been a laugh had the weariness not settled into her bones. Each blink was harder than the last; her lids too heavy to keep open as she blinked lazily up into the midday sky. Her voice came out deep and slurring with sleep. “You’re not as awful as they say.”

“...aren’t I?”

“No,” Jaina mumbled. “The curse of something so beautiful is to always be deadly. The ocean is the same. The prettiest flowers hide the sharpest thorns.”

“How poetic. Not just a pretty face, then,” the fae teased.

Jaina made a soft noise of agreement, sleep dragging her under with little more than a deep, sighing breath. She drifted off with the memory of golden hair adorned with a crown of thorns, and blazing red eyes.

When she woke next, dusk had set in, and the Banshee Queen was gone. Her clothes were damp from the evening dew and the woods were quiet around her. As Jaina rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she mumbled a sleepy word of thanks to the forest, to the moss that cushioned her head, to the little alcove of shade the roots had made around her. She felt the forest shift around her in reply. The branches overhead swayed gently, leaves rustling like the soft rush of the waves to shore; as if a lullaby to soothe her.

She looked up through the trees and saw the setting sun between the leaves and gasped. She fled quickly through the trees, their branches parting to make way.

Her mother was waiting in the hall of the Keep.

From the state of her clothes alone, Katherine knew. “The woods are not the same as the seas, Jaina,” she chided. “They hide far more wicked things in the dark than you know.”

“Is she really any more wicked than our Drowned God?” Jaina sighed. The deities they worshipped were no less cruel; no less merciful when it came to the worship and prayer the villagers clung to. She knew of those who made altars by the ring — of those who made offerings in the name of the fae Queen. Jaina knew of a small number of villagers who paid homage to the fae; who bowed their heads in reverence instead of fear. Who asked permission and blessing when they hunted. Those were the ones whose bounties were the fullest in the spring.

Voice sharp and reproachful, Katherine said, “You cannot compare such a creature to a god. Have you no respect for the ways of your people?”

“I’m only suggesting that the wickedness she smites with may be justified,” Jaina said. “You were the one who told me stories of her, don’t you remember?” She looked at Katherine and thought of the days of sitting perched on her mother’s lap; of soft hands brushing her hair and humming songs of the Queen of the Lands. They had been warnings, mostly — tales of children who played by the faerie ring and answered the call of the Queen.

The ones that gave her their names and took her hand when she offered it.

Katherine pursed her lips and looked away. “Those were children’s stories, Jaina. This is real.” She gave Jaina a hard, serious look; the plea of a mother caught in the seafoam of her eyes. “Please. Do not wander those woods again. Run to the tides if you must, but if I were to lose you to _that fae_ — I would not know what to do with myself.”

Jaina met her gaze with defiance. “I am no child or wandering maiden, mother. I am the Daughter of the Sea. I lose myself to no one and nothing,” she said coldly, and spun away on her heels before her mother could speak further. She climbed the tower to her room and sulked there; she felt no hunger and no thirst, and so she took no dinner.

She sat, instead, on the ledge of her bay window, its frames spread out wide and bringing in the familiar scent of the ocean breeze. There, beyond the horizon, she saw the vast spread of the sunset spilt over the sea.

She turned her gaze towards the forest, and sang.

 

\---------

 

The repairs on the Sable Rose were taking more time than Jaina liked. She did not mind it all that much; her men were glad for the reprieve and the time spent with their families, and Jaina found some solace in the endless shelves of the village archives and library. She pored over the oldest records she could find; scoured endless rows of tomes to find the stories that the history books had left hidden away.

She looked for stories of the time before Man; of the land and the spirits that supposedly haunted it. She found tales of creatures with powers the likes of which they had never seen before — but still, there were no names. There were legends, yes; of the Sisters Three. With hair like spun gold and eyes like the bluest skies, and the prowess of the greatest warriors and the wisest leaders seen since before the Dawn of Man.

The tomes spoke of a Great Fall, but what little Jaina could find of it had been a cursory mention at best.

She found more and more excuses to disappear into the woods. Some days, the Banshee Queen was waiting at the edge of the ring for her; other evenings she was sat on her rock perch, dressed in her armour once more. Some nights, she sharpened a blade. Other nights, she played a panpipe whose lilting songs never seemed to breach the space of the clearing.

“Is this how you beguile the villagers?” she asked one day, laying back on a large root sprouted from the earth; enveloped in plush moss. She rested her head upon it and watched the Banshee Queen carefully carve something from petrified wood. “Sweet songs and riveting conversation?”

The Banshee Queen smiled enigmatically. “Am I beguiling you now?” The blade in her hand scraped quietly against the trinket, leaving behind dust that smeared and blended into the black of her nails.

Jaina regarded her thoughtfully. “You’re doing something,” she murmured, brushing her cheek against the earthen moss. “I just don’t quite know what yet.”

Once more, that coy and knowing curve of her feline lips. “Perhaps you might tell me on the day you discover the truth.”

Some moments, day or night; dusk or dawn, Jaina would go to the clearing and find it preternaturally still. The trees would not sway with the breeze and the birds would not sing, but Jaina found the path bright and open to her when she sought it.

On those days, she would linger at the edge of the clearing hesitantly, her fingers toying with the shape of the pendant anchor that hardly ever left her breast. The first time she had gone to the ring and found it empty, Jaina had been wracked with a warring combination of disappointment and worry. She’d been tempted, dangerously, to cross the threshold of the faerie ring, but she remembered the warnings the Banshee Queen had given her.

“Stay in the glade for as long as you like. I would prefer it, even.” Then her beautiful face had darkened and the Banshee Queen had given Jaina a look that seemed to sear into her soul. “But tread not into the ring when I am absent.”

Because Jaina was who she was, she had asked, “Why?”

And the Banshee Queen had looked at her, and it was such a look of warning that Jaina had to dig her heels into the ground to keep from fleeing.

“You are favoured here, little one. But what do you think they would do to the plucky little human who would dare enter the realm of the fae without the escort of its Queen?”

Curiosity overcame clarity one day, and Jaina took a tentative step closer. There was a strange thrum of energy around it; a vague pulse of something that seemed to intensify the closer she went. Around her the forest came alive with noise, the frantic buzzing of cicadas and chirping crickets began to shroud her in a wave of sound. The ring remained unobtrusively still, the strange barrier of tension roiling as if to entice her nearer.

Jaina dared to press closer. The tips of her shoes could almost kiss the stem of the ring. Around her, the cicadas screamed and the leaves rustled, looming in overhead as the bark of the trees began to splinter and groan.

She knew the signs of the seas to know exactly what was happening at that moment.

She knew a portent when she saw one.

Jaina blinked, as if only then coming back to herself. She glanced down at her feet, fingers clutching the necklace still as she took one large step backwards. The faint humming faded and the din around her fell away; the forest was calm once more.

Sighing, Jaina perched herself comfortably atop a moss-covered root. She had noticed lately that the forest itself had been kinder to her; its paths were somehow shorter and brighter, its trees growing shade and pulling its roots from the earth to provide her with a place to rest. At first, she had thought it to be her imagination, then the will of the fae Queen.

Now, she realised, it seemed to do things on its own volition.

The forest was as alive as the sea was, and it seemed to like her.

She gave the base of the tree a pat of gratitude and settled into the little nook its roots made for her. Above her, the leaves rustled pleasedly, and Jaina blinked as something fell from its branches. She gathered them into her hands carefully, tilting her head.

Wild black cherries.

Jaina smiled and looked up into the leaves. “Thank you.”

More moss sprouted along the arch of a root, sumptuous and sun-warmed. She ate the cherries at her leisure, savoured the tartness of them on her tongue as she watched the sun play between the leaves. She hummed a tune as she ate, embraced by the lullaby of the forest.

She had not meant to close her eyes, but the day was too pleasant and the birdsongs too sweet. Overhead, the leaves pulled together across her face, shrouding her from the sun, and with a dreamy sigh, Jaina slept.

It might have been days, or months, or years later when she woke. It felt like an eternity had passed before she felt the faintest drip of rainfall on her cheek. Stirring dazedly, Jaina opened her eyes to a pair of blazing red staring down at her. She startled, scrambling back against the base of the tree in surprise. “Tides!” she breathed, blinking up at the Queen in reproach. “You scared me half to death.”

“This is a bad habit, little one.” The Banshee Queen straightened upright and folded her hands behind her back, unapologetic. Her body seemed to glimmer and ripple in the fading sunlight; her twilight garb and morning leathers shifting and roiling until it finally settled into shadows and moonlight. “Who knows what beast could have stumbled upon you so.”

“I hadn’t planned to fall asleep,” Jaina mumbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“You seem to spend quite a copious amount of time dozing amidst the trees. Have you no bed at home, little one?”

“I was waiting for you, and then the forest bid me stay.” She hid a yawn behind her fist and noted the way the Queen peered at her from the corner of her eye.

Humming, the fae turned her haughty nose up with a sniff. “Are you so closely bonded to my woods now?”

With an indulgent and sleepy smile, Jaina asked, “Are you more jealous that I favour it or it favours me, O Banshee Queen?”

“Neither,” she drawled. “I only wonder if you had lost your fear of the creatures that roamed the forest.”

“What creature would dare disrespect the space of the Banshee Queen?”

The fae cocked her head; the coy gleam in her eyes belying something deadly. “What makes you so sure that I am not the beast?”

“Are you?” Jaina asked, stretching her arms over her head and elongating her spine as she rose to her feet.

“...Didn't your mother ever warn you about monsters?”

Boldly — or perhaps it was the mists of sleep that still clouded her sensibilities —, Jaina reached out and touched the Banshee Queen’s cheek. It was cold to the touch and the fae’s elegant brows twitched, though her face remained smooth and inscrutable. In a voice husky and warm, she said, “You don't look like a monster.”

Amber eyes pierced through hers, blazing into something entirely inhuman. “How bold,” she whispered, and it carried through the glade on a breeze. “To touch a fae so freely.”

“A touch for a touch, then,” Jaina whispered, and could not help the way her eyes dropped down to the Banshee Queen’s lips. “As fair a trade as any.” She slid her hand away and took a daring step forward, tilting her head upwards to keep her gaze trained on the fae.

The Queen loomed over her wordlessly, tilting her own chin down until they were nearly nose-to-nose. "I hear your songs in the night at times,” she whispered, and Jaina could nearly taste her words. “Don't you know how dangerous that is, little one?”

“How can a song be dangerous?” Jaina asked, her eyes hooded and soft.

Leaning down, the Dark Lady was so close the tips of their noses brushed, and Jaina shivered at the sensation. “Do you not give your heart to your words?”

Jaina’s breath hitched, and for an instant, she dropped her chin. A curtain of hair fell over her face, and through it she could see the dip of the Queen’s chin tilting down further to watch her face. Her hand reached for the anchor between her breasts, and the fae’s eyes tracked the movement with a bright flare of intrigue.

“My,” the Queen breathed, eyes glowing an entirely different flame. “Such a pretty necklace. An heirloom, I’m sure. Something you cherish very dearly.”

“It is not for trade, Banshee.”

“I do not wish to trade for it; more so its place in your heart.”

Jaina blushed deeply and ducked her head again.

“Suddenly so shy,” the Dark Lady cooed. “Have you lost your courage now, Daughter of the Sea? Surely you know the price for reneging a trade with a fae — from the Queen, no less.”

With a burning in her cheeks and a wild flutter in her chest, Jaina lifted her face and met the Banshee’s gaze defiantly. “So touch me, then,” she murmured. “But I’m no fool, good Queen; I know my words and the weight they carry. Touch me where I touched you, and nowhere else.”

“Ah, Child of the Tides,” the Queen sighed, and to Jaina’s ears, it was lascivious and deadly. “You are too clever.” She leaned down then, so quickly that Jaina barely had the time to brace herself —

A whisper of lips; nothing more than a breath of a touch, quick and sharp against her cheek. She gasped, and it was swallowed by parted lips and flash of vicious teeth when the Banshee glanced her lips over Jaina’s.

“So clever,” the Banshee Queen breathed, and Jaina could taste the steel and starlight in her words. “And yet so foolish.” Taloned fingers flared outwards, reaching towards her —

The glade around them swelled with noise; the sharp snap of branches, the creak and groan of tree bark as the leaves shook violently. Jaina reeled back in shock, and in the fleeting moment when her eyes met the Queen’s, she saw the same look of surprise. In a surge of power, the Banshee Queen pulled away, and Jaina tripped backwards on the moss-covered root she had been sleeping on. She jarred her tailbone against the base of the tree and stars bloomed behind her eyelids when her head bounced off the trunk of it.

Tendrils and thick shadows rose up and swallowed the Banshee Queen — and then it all went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in flowering fields and watery depths, their paths converge

When Jaina woke next, the world swam into focus on a wave of pain. It rose from the tail of her spine up into the base of her skull, undulating and swelling to a crest that pitched her from the darkness into blinding light. She forced her eyes open with a smothered groan of pain, expecting the shaded loom of the canopy of trees —

Instead, she looked up and saw the hanging green of the canopy of her bed.

Frowning, Jaina struggled upright, fighting against the heavy weight of the blankets around her and squinting about the room.

A hot blade of ache built in the back of her head, and Jaina flinched. She swallowed back a rush of bile in her throat and steadied herself against the bed, staring at the sheets until the room ceased its spinning. At last, the room calmed, and Jaina slowly pushed herself out of bed. Her legs buckled beneath her, but she caught herself against the bedpost, blinking back the stars in her eyes.

When the room cleared, so too did the burden of agony from her body. Jaina blinked dazedly, staring down at her own form in disbelief as the pain washed away like the tides. She moved one leg, then the other. She blinked and looked around the room and did not find her vision swimming.

Jaina frowned. Her hand reflexively sought the weight of her anchor pendant, stroking over the smooth texture of it, scraping the edge of her nail against the curved bill. She felt the calming thrum of the ocean, heard the gentle rush and wane of the waves through the open bay windows. On steadying feet, she moved towards the call of the tides and perched herself along the windowsill.

Outside, the day was bright; the morning sun cresting slowly in the horizon. The winds and the waves were calm. The trees in the woods were still.

Had it all been a dream?

Jaina touched the back of her head wonderingly. Painless, skin unbruised and unbroken, but when her fingers came away, she felt a faint remnant of moss and the smell of cherries lingering. Her cheek and lips still tingled at the memory of the Banshee Queen’s touch —

She reached out and gripped the windowsill tight, leaning out as far as she dared to peer out as deeply into the woods as she could. The lush canopy of leaves seemed to huddle tighter together than before; the paths between the trees shrouded from sight.

It was as if the forest had sealed itself away.

Jaina frowned again, but laid it to rest.

Perhaps she had pushed too far. There were always lessons to learn from playing too close to fire.

That day, Jaina kept to the shores in a daze. She checked on her crew, she checked on the Rose and its repairs; she stayed for meals and walked the village streets with her mother. All of this, she did, but could not help the way her head would swivel and search for a glimpse of the woods and its verdant leaves.

Her mother would glance at her sharply each time, accusation and apprehension in her penetrating gaze, and Jaina would look away.

There were no songs carried on the breeze and no tales of villagers encountering the Queen of the Fae that day. When dusk had settled, Jaina walked to the edge of the water and sang her lament to the sea. The waves rushed to meet her, the slow resonance of its crash and retreat carrying her voice over the waters and up onto the breeze. The winds rose into a whirl around her, caressing the ends of her hair and tugging along her skirts before flitting away, dancing across the land and disappearing between the trees.

She turned and watched the winds fade into the leaves, and felt her longing go with them.

 

\---------

 

Some few days passed, and Jaina did not hear the song of the Banshee. The woods were still, eerily so, and even hunters kept their distance. The brave few would only dare traverse the borders of the trees when huddled together in a group. She sometimes caught the sight of an old man braving the journey, bent with age and creaking on his cane; the forest welcomed him more than anyone else, parting its leaves and clearing a narrow path. She would watch, perched from the highest tower of the Keep and neck craned as he hobbled into the woods and out sometime later, unscathed.

It was a routine that carried on for days; the old man and his cane, and something bundled in cloth on his back. Swallowed into the forest and then returned safely; his bundle gone. Whatever it was that he brought into the woods would leave it... _calm_ , almost. Appeased in a way that ancient things could be appeased.

It was not long before her curiosity overwhelmed her. In the cover of darkness, Jaina climbed down the walls of Proudmoore Keep and snuck towards the woods. In the twilight, its winding path towards the trees were silent and still; the chirping crickets and croaking frogs had gone mute, and Jaina felt an uneasy chill begin to climb her spine as she strode across the knoll.

At the mouth of the main path, she paused. The trees had folded inwards together, where once they had been a natural archway of entry; dead branches cresting the path in a foreboding gate of thorns.

Tentatively, Jaina asked, “Will you guide the path for me?”

The branches creaked, but remained firmly in place.

Jaina frowned. “Please? At least let me know if she’s alright.”

Overhead, the looming leaves rustled with no breeze, and to her ears, Jaina heard them whisper, _sleep_.

She blinked. “Sleep?”

The leaves shook themselves once more, insistent. _Sleep_. A breeze sang through the trees, crooning and low, and Jaina felt it flit downwards around her. It teased through her hair and tugged at her cloak before winding back upwards into the leaves, and Jaina stared after it.

Frowning, she waited for another moment — bracing for another sign, perhaps for a flicker of the Banshee Queen’s presence, but none came. Sighing, Jaina pulled her cloak tighter about her frame and peered at the trees imploringly. “Will you at least tell her that I came?”

A branch high above the rest rustled, and down came a flutter of colour in the moonlight. Kneeling into the cool grass, Jaina cradled it carefully between her hands.

A tulip. Fresh and bright as the sun.

Cupping it in her hands, she brought the flower to her nose. Its scent was sharp and spiced, and its petals thrummed with an ethereal flush of something Decidedly Preternatural. Still, she held it as delicately as she would spun glass, and finally began her journey back to the Keep. When she returned to her bed that night, Jaina fell asleep to the sight of the bright yellow tulip, housed within a crystalline vase and perched carefully on her bedside table.

She closed her eyes and dreamt of the scent of sweet and spice and earthen steel. Behind the dark of her lids, she saw a wide open glen; a field of flowering tulips swaying in the gentle breeze. The smell of them on the winds. Before her laid a well-trodden path, and Jaina looked beyond the warm yellow petals to a figure in the distance.

Broad and dark in its familiarity, and Jaina felt a thrill go through her as she lifted her voice to the breeze and called out.

The Banshee Queen turned on a heel, peering at her sidelong over her shoulder as Jaina swept forward in long-legged strides to meet her. As she approached, she saw the fae’s pretty lips curve into a smile that was coy and warm.

_“Hello, little one.”_

Breathless with delight, Jaina replied, “You’re alright.”

The Queen blinked and tilted her head slowly. “Whyever would I not be?”

Jaina frowned. “That night, in the woods —” she paused when the field rustled around them, and the Banshee Queen turned to face her on soundless feet, her cloak rippling as shadows behind her.

“I should ask the same, then,” the fae Queen said, peering down at her. A pinch formed in her elegant brow, the corners of her mouth tightened, and she asked, “Are you well, Sweet Daughter? When last we met, you had taken quite the tumble.”

Flushing at the memory, Jaina lowered her gaze and reached to the back of her head in as casual a gesture as she could manage. “I wasn’t sure if our last encounter had even been real.”

“Oh?”

“I thought it had been a dream. When I woke, I was in my bed,” she murmured, daring to lift her gaze to the Banshee Queen’s.

“What makes you so certain that it was not?” Once more, that smile. Coy and sharp and deadly.

Jaina did not answer her; perhaps it was the boldness born from the depths of her resting mind, or perhaps the growing absence of fear that came when she saw the Queen of the Fae. Glancing about them, she asked instead, “Is this where you walk when you leave the ring? The realm of dreams?”

The Banshee Queen inclined her head, glancing about them idly. “I walk where I please, little one. This land is but grounds for play.”

“Are you here to play with me, then?”

Amber eyes met her gaze sidelong and held it. “...No.”

Something stirred in her belly, and it was not relief. “Then why are you here, Banshee Queen?”

A hand gloved in opulent leather reached out, and Jaina felt the whisper of its caress along the braid in her hair. “I came to see you, of course.”

“I’m...glad for it,” Jaina murmured, and resisted the pull of the Banshee Queen’s touch. Tempted she was, truly, to rock forward on the balls of her feet, to lean into that ethereal touch, but a voice whispered in the back of her mind, and Jaina held fast. “I had tried to visit you, but the woods were...uninviting. They were closed off from me. I’ve seen a man enter the woods freely.”

The Banshee Queen blinked, sliding her hand away deliberately to fold it behind her back once more. She took a thoughtful pause, regarding Jaina with catlike curiosity for a moment. Whatever it was she found in Jaina’s face seemed to appease her, and she turned away to begin walking down the path.

“He is one of the few left alive who remembers the ways of worship of the Old Gods,” she said, glancing backwards at Jaina expectantly. When Jaina finally found her feet, she continued. “Without the legacy of those traditions, we would all but fade away.”

“Perhaps he could teach me,” Jaina suggested, and she noted the way the flowers parted before them. The rustle of her feet through the grass was soft and muted, like the faint call of the waves from a distant shore. The Banshee Queen made no such noise. “I could learn how to worship you.”

Soundless feet faltered, and the Queen glanced at her sharply with wary eyes. “...A kind gesture, O Daughter of the Sea. But you leave the land too often.” With a regal toss of her head, she continued walking. “Your heart belongs to another.”

“...Can it not belong to many?” she asked.

“The forest is a jealous deity.”

Jaina followed quickly, peering at the Queen. A rush of something brazen and bold came over her, and she hastened her pace to match the Banshee’s. “Is it the forest or its guardian that is so jealous?”

With a sharp glance, the Banshee Queen stopped once more, and when she turned to Jaina then, the shadows and mists gathered around her in a roil of tendrils that plumed around her shoulders. “They worry for you, child,” she whispered. “As do I.”

She looked up, and it was then Jaina realised that they had somehow traversed the path of the tulips. When had they entered the woods? How had the trees passed without her knowing? Was this the realm of her dream, or the fae’s?

Jaina could not remember a time in her life when she had been in such a flowering field.

“Why would you need to worry for me, good Queen?”

Pursing her lips, the Banshee said, “The faerie ring is not safe for you anymore. Not at this current moment.”

“Why?” Jaina asked, a flutter rising in her belly when the Banshee Queen looked away up into the trees, perhaps even beyond them. “Have I done something to offend you, Faerie Queen? Forgive me; I was too bold with my words before —”

Jaina startled when the fae turned her head back suddenly, her voice coming low and sharp. “You have nothing to apologise for, Daughter of the Sea.” Her glowing eyes blazed into Jaina’s face, and then dropped down to somewhere beneath her nose. “Your...boldness has earned you my favour.”

The flutter became a flurry.

Pulling back, the Banshee Queen regarded her indifferently over her nose. “I came to deliver a warning.”

“A warning?”

Once more, the Queen looked away, and now Jaina could see the slight furrow of her brow; the tight press of her lips together. The faint shadow of the dimple in her cheek. “Something wicked this way comes, little one,” she murmured, and in that instant, Jaina saw the weariness burdened on her shoulders — was it not a thousand lifetimes that she had been here? “I know not what, but it draws ever closer.” Her amber eyes flickered back to Jaina, and her voice was a gentle lilt on the breeze. “Do not wander the woods until the moon is brightest in the sky. Only then will I be able to protect you.”

Fear cut into the fluttering heat of her chest, gripping like black steel and ice, and Jaina frowned. What was it that came upon the winds that shook something as Ancient and Mighty as the Queen of the Lands? “Perhaps I could help,” she hedged. “The full moon is when the sea is strongest — it’s when _I_ am strongest. Surely my bond to the tides can help somehow?”

“Perhaps, Sweet Daughter,” the Banshee Queen allowed, and gave her a considering look. “But I will not allow you to be harmed. That is my promise.” She tilted her head again, an ear angling downwards to mimic the motion. “You will travel the seas once more soon. I can feel the restlessness in the tides.”

Jaina chewed the edge of her lip; she could feel it the same. The tingle and itch in her fingertips, the longing for the ocean when its waves washed to shore. She sang her laments to the waters and they called back to her, and Jaina had always answered with the devotion of She With a Higher Calling.

For the first time in her life, Jaina had hesitated.

“I will,” she admitted, at length. “The Rose has had her repairs and she’s ready for the waters again. I had — I didn’t want to leave again without —”

The Banshee Queen reached for something within her cloak. “Reach out your hand, child.”

Jaina blinked but obeyed slowly. She stared at the Faerie Queen deposited something small and polished into the palm of her hand. Curling her fingers around it, Jaina inspected it curiously, brows lifting in surprise. “It’s —”

“A gift,” the Faerie Queen said, with that same feral smile. “Given with honest intentions. Wear it around your neck, little one, and I will always be able to reach you when you are home.” She reached out and made a gesture with her fingers over Jaina’s hand, and something shimmered and fell from her grasp like powdered stardust.

“And when I'm not?”

“...then it will serve as a reminder for what awaits you when you do.”

Turning the trinket over in her palm, Jaina realised it was a pendant of sorts. Carved from petrified wood and polished to a gleam; it was what the Banshee Queen had been carving all those days ago in the faerie ring. She stroked her thumb over it, the raised texture of its etchings tingling on her skin. It was a language she had seen not too long ago, ancient and faded from use.

“Thalassian?” Ancient, truly. A language that had died in the time of the Sisters Three.

The Banshee Queen stared, her cheek twitching once as she curled her lip slightly into a sneer. “Ah, brushing up on your history, I see. Clever girl.”

Jaina clutched to the pendant and felts its magic thrum. “I wanted to learn about the stories of the land. I had been gone for so long; I’d forgotten the legends of my people and the Time Before Then.” She reached for her necklace, unhooking it to slide the pendant onto the silver. It glittered in the light, and pressed against the silver anchor of her father, Jaina felt the warmth of their powers spill over into a boil.

“I should be so flattered,” the Queen purred, eyes gleaming with amusement. “The Goddess of the Seas, taking an interest in such a lowly creature of the land.”

Smirking wryly, Jaina tilted her head and peered up at the Banshee Queen with something coy and indulgent. “I don’t think I can hardly be compared to a goddess, but I’ve never known such tales of the fae being so humble,” she remarked.

Once more, the Banshee Queen loomed close, until the fabric of her cloak rippled and brushed against the edges of Jaina’s skirts. Until the air between them was breathed by them as one. “Perhaps that is your glamour, Sweet Daughter. One worthy of my protection.”

With no small amount of breathless wonder and wariness, Jaina asked, “...and what do you require in return for your protection, good Queen? Surely there must be a boon you would ask of me.”

Straightening to her full height, the Banshee Queen smirked. With a noiseless step, she came forward to loom once more into Jaina’s space; a parody of their last encounter. “...this, I give you freely.” Her breath was like the gentlest caress of velvet petals on Jaina’s skin, and her lashes fluttered. With another feline tilt of her head, the Queen stepped back, and Jaina found herself yearning to follow.

“But perhaps, at another time, you might remember my generosity.”

The shadows began to shift and unfurl, a cloak of darkness that rose into the wings of a mighty creature, velvet and leather and yet altogether intangible. “Until we meet again, little one. Remember my warning.”

She reached out then, and Jaina found herself shoved backwards.

Jaina felt the earth tilt under her, like the rock of a ship against the roiling tides. She looked up at the Banshee Queen and found herself at the edge of a cliffside and the sea below her. The stones beneath her feet crumbled, and suddenly she was falling overboard, falling, falling, falling —

The waves reached up to welcome her, the sand like sheets to her back, stones like pillows —

Jaina opened her eyes.

Sunlight spilt over the ceiling in dancing rays through the window. From beside her bed, she caught the flash of bright yellow petals, the scent of spiced sweetness and steel on the breeze. Something warm and resonating was pressed against her breast, and Jaina reached down to touch the polished edge of petrified wood.

She rose that day and went to the docks.

The Sable Rose was ready for the seas once more.

 

\---------

 

They prepared their stocks and loaded the Rose for the new journey. Her men had been feeling the same restless ache and longing for the waters, and as they worked, the tunes of their shanties carried across the docks and the waters. Jaina laughed and raised her voice to meet theirs, and their songs rose higher across the seas with the joy and exaltation that made the waves sway and roil pleasedly.

The waves called to Jaina with a croon, beckoning her close with the soft longing that she had felt blooming in her chest. It had been too long since she’d swum in its waters, and the familiar breeze of salt and earth and steel and wood brought the longing to an overpowering need.

Climbing up onto the ship’s balustrade, Jaina looked down into the frothing waves and shimmering blue and green. Behind her, her men’s voices had dropped into a low croon of reverence; all eyes were on her, she knew. This was what she did, as Daughter of the Sea.

She heard its call and she answered to it.

She dove into the waters and it embraced her with the grace of a lover. It was in the depths that she felt most at home, most soothed, most separate from the cacophony of land life. Below the waves, everything was still.

Everything was at peace.

Jaina swam as far down as her lungs would allow her; pushing beyond the average depths that even the most seasoned sailors could plunge. Her lungs did not scream for air, her body did not seize for breath. Down below the tides, she and the sea were one.

Something rippled in the waters, like the low croon of a whalesong; deep and mournful.

_Why have you gone so far from me, little one? Why do you stray where I cannot reach?_

Jaina spun in the water, her hair floating like a gilded halo around her. She reached out a thought, tentative and wary. _Banshee Queen? Is that you?_

 _Who else would whisper so in your mind?_ It came like the sound of muffled groans; a strain to her words as if it were an exertion of too much strength to reach so far into the depths.

 _What are you doing in my mind?_ Around her neck, she felt the weight of the pendants twined together; their magic pulsing against her breast.

It was almost as if she could see the Banshee Queen’s shrug. _I could not feel you, so I searched. And ‘lo I find you seeking a watery grave._

Could she have laughed, Jaina would have. _I do not wish to meet death so soon. I’m swimming._

_You are drowning._

The ocean roiled around her, indignant, and Jaina felt the waters close in on her possessively. She calmed it with a low noise in her chest, singing to it sweetly with the sounds that carried like the softest whalesong.

_The sea protects me, and I protect it. It would never let me drown._

_...Nor I._

_Do I inspire jealousy in such a powerful being?_ Jaina teased, allowing the waters to hold her afloat. She moved, sinuous and sensual, as if the Banshee Queen could see; as if she would know.

It was likely that she did.

The reply was nearly petulant. _Do not play coy. It infuriates me._

With the waters enveloping her, Jaina felt the boldness in her blood rise to the surface once more. _That you cannot touch me here?_ She reached out and touched the empty waters before her, and imagined the shadows of another figure looming. _That you are bound to the land as I am the sea?_

The voice that came to her was whispered and low; as if there were lips pressed just against her ear.

_...Yes._

Jaina blinked. From above, she heard the call of her men and the crashing of the waves. She peered down into the endless depths for a moment, and kicking powerful legs, she swam to the surface. Her men sang and cheered when she rose from the seas; its waves calm and the horizon steady, and she climbed back onto the Rose to a hearty welcome.

Someone wrapped her shoulders in a heavy towel, and as Jaina clung to it, she reached into the corners of her mind once more. _We leave at first light in the morning. Would I...could I see you before then?_

_...perhaps, little one. Only if you ask nicely._

A fond smile threatened to grace the corners her lips, and Jaina hid it away with a wipe of the towel. _Won’t you grace me, O Banshee Queen, Sweet Mistress of the Land and Earth, with your presence? Do you not wish a fond farewell?_

_...sleep soundly tonight, O Daughter of the Sea, and perhaps you might dream of me._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a goodbye sealed with a kiss

On her last night home, Jaina sat with her mother for dinner. It was always bittersweet; they ate all of her favourite meals, drank her favourite port, and in those moments, she saw her mother’s eyes fill with the same hope, the same plea. Each time she left, Jaina sat through dinner with an ache in her chest.

That night, there was a restlessness that filled her like the thrill of a looming storm. The electric air that rippled in the wild breeze and the whipping sails, the unassuming calm of the waters before the snarl of thunder. She knew her longing for the sea; the pull to its lapping waves like the call of whalesong.

The tingle in her fingertips was not longing. It was not fear — she knew fear too well, knew the dread that sat in her belly like stone, when it crawled into her throat with the taste of bile.

No. Jaina knew fear. This was nothing like it.

It sat in her belly with the flutter and roil of the most frenzied beat of hummingbird wings. She knew the thrill of taming a storm, of soothing the crashing waves.

She knew anticipation like the thrum of her own heart.

Katherine watched her with the knowing of a mother. “Perhaps one day, you will find a reason to stay ashore,” she said. “If not for me, then for your heart.”

Jaina’s leg jittered under the table idly, and her hand reached up to stroke over the polished ridges of petrified wood. “My heart belongs to the seas,” she replied, as she always did, but in that moment, she felt a faint tug of something eerily familiar to reproach in the back of her mind. She reached up a hand to tuck the small braid wound into her hair behind an ear.

“And yet you wander the woods and tempt the dangers of the Faerie Queen.”

Her breath hitched, and Jaina gave her mother a mild look. “I’ve walked those paths a hundred times over. I have never been safer.”

“And you think that the Banshee Queen would not ask something of you in repayment?” Katherine pressed. “That she would beguile you and tempt you away with her glamour?” Her tone was sharp; as if she could see the moments in which Jaina had been _tempted_ already.

Sighing, Jaina reached for the port and poured herself a generous helping. It was heady and sweet, and the taste of it lingered on her tongue and in her throat, pooling warmly in her belly. Its earthen taste reminded her of the forest, of its swaying branches and dancing breeze.

Of the sweet petals of blooming tulips.

With her voice low and soft, she implored her mother, “Please.” She peered at Katherine with weariness in her blue eyes. “This is my last night home. I don’t want us to fight.”

And so the matter was laid to rest.

Before long, Jaina bade her mother goodnight, pressing a kiss to Katherine’s cheek and allowing herself to be embraced tightly before she returned to her chambers. The port remained in her belly; warm and heady, and it was enough for Jaina to feel the soft buzz of drink. A steadily growing flame had been building since her swim in the sea, and by the time she pulled the doors of her chambers shut, Jaina could feel the prickling of sweat build on her skin.

She washed quickly in water that was chilly to the touch, and still it did not quell the embers spreading across her flesh. She dressed in her lightest nightgown; made of cotton and silk so fine that it was almost sheer. Throwing open the grand bay windows, Jaina once more perched herself on its sill, basking in the cool swath of darkness of the night. The breeze came with a dance of earth and salt and the sea, and Jaina felt a shiver go through her as the faintest memory of flowers was carried with it.

The curtains billowed in a sudden swell of sea breeze, and Jaina felt her eyes grow heavy.

It was the winds that crooned to her then, _sleep_.

Jaina smiled, hazy-eyed and languid. “Will you always speak to me in whispers now, O Queen of the Night? Will I hear you in the crash of the waves and the winds that carry my sails?”

A gust of wind teased at the ends of her nightgown, and Jaina laughed quietly. “As you like.” She turned away from the windows but did not shut them, casting a coy glance at the fluttering curtains once before crawling into bed. The plushness of her pillows and the coolness of her sheets were a welcome reprieve to the persistent heat in her belly, and Jaina nuzzled down into a pillow. It was not long before she felt the dark warmth of sleep pull her under, and she surrendered to it willingly.

When she opened her eyes next, it was to the soft billow of the hanging drapes of her bed. Gauzy and fluttering in great undulating movements — like the sultry twist and twine of cloth underwater. She blinked, brows furrowing as she pushed herself up on her elbows. The room tilted slightly on an axis, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dreamy, drunken haze of it.

Amidst the rippling cotton, she saw a writhe of black; like the whiplash strike of a viper, like the flash of something ghostly and wicked in the corner of her eye. Jaina blinked, turning her head —

“ _Hello, little one_.”

Jaina gasped, a wild rush of fear clotting in her throat. The black wisps came together in a mass of writhing tendrils, and from the smoke and mist, the Banshee Queen emerged. She moved soundlessly towards the bed despite the constant ripple and shift of her cloak and tendrils. She stopped at the footboard of the bed, arms folded behind her once more.

So close, and yet so far away.

The sight of her made Jaina frown slightly. Something was strange; was she dreaming still, if it felt all too real? “Banshee Queen.”

“Daughter of the Sea.”

“I hadn’t expected you to be here.”

The Queen smiled slowly, coy and sweet, and Jaina saw it through the heady gleam of sleep and drink. “Were you not the one who bid me here?”

Jaina felt a rush of heat go through her that had nothing to do with the warmth of the sheets or the port from dinner. “I did,” she breathed, with a slight thrust of her chin outwards.

“Well?” The Banshee Queen tilted her head once more, the shadows and tendrils writhing behind her. “Won’t you grant me my _fond_ farewell, Sweet One?”

The croon of her words made Jaina’s belly flutter and warm again, and in her throat she could still taste the lingering sweetness of port, the remnant of flowering tulips in an open field. “I didn’t expect you to come to me _here_ ,” she murmured, pushing back to lay against the pillows and rub the sleep from her eyes.

She blinked, waiting for her vision to clear, but there was no clarity to be had. The room seemed to blur even further, as if caught between the realm of dream and reality; as if she were still buoyed on the clouds of the port from dinner.

She looked, and Jaina’s eyes seemed to only find focus on the fae Queen.

Blazing amber eyes roamed over her form, lingering on her neck and chest, and Jaina forced herself to suppress a shiver. “Did you not leave your window open to me, child? Were you not the one who invited the Faerie Queen into the warmth of your rooms?”

The shadows rustled once more, daring to skirt along the surface of her bed, dancing across the silken sheets. Jaina became all too aware of the sheerness of her nightgown — of the bareness of her legs, the stiffness of her nipples brushing against the fabric. She sat up straighter, pulling the sheets up over her body, but the Banshee Queen’s eyes were already lingering knowingly at her neckline.

Jaina flushed, reaching up to brush her fingers against the comforting weight of her father’s anchor around her neck. Her thumbnail brushed against the polished surface of petrified wood, its faint magic thrumming beneath her fingertip, pulsing like the ripple of the waves against the hull of the Rose.

The Banshee Queen’s brow twitched, and at last lifted her gaze to meet Jaina’s. “It pleases me to see you cherishing my gift so.”

“It’s beautiful,” Jaina said, without thought, or perhaps more so without inhibition. “Though I cannot imagine what I could have done to earn such favour.”

“Is it not enough that you are who you are, little one?” The Banshee Queen cocked her head. “As bold and beautiful as the tides themselves.” She smiled a feline smile. “The Daughter of the Sea. Foolish in the way only humans are.”

Jaina wrinkled her nose mildly. “Am I meant to be flattered at being called a fool?” she drawled.

Tilting her head slowly, the Queen of the Faes gave her an amused smirk. “What else am I to name the one who heeded the call of my song in the dead of night? Who dared touch a fae without thought of repercussion?”

“...that is fair.”

A laugh like chimes and dancing winds filled the room, and it reminded Jaina of the glade. She remembered the smell of the moss beneath her head, the dancing light of fireflies and twinkling stars overhead. The scent of cold steel and petrichor and spiced tulips when the Banshee Queen had been close enough to touch.

A soft wave of melancholy took over; she would surely miss it when she sailed.

“So. You have summoned me here.” Long, black-tipped fingernails danced idly along the hanging drapes of her bed, the material rippling from an unseen breeze. “Are we meant to say our goodbyes then?”

Under the Queen’s penetrating gaze, Jaina felt a warring combination of guilt and longing. “I’ve stayed ashore for far longer than I should have. There are trades to be made. My men grow restless when their feet are planted aground for too long.”

The banshee gave her a discerning look. “And what of you, Child of the Tides? Do you not feel the call of the sea under your skin?”

“I do,” Jaina said with a shrug. “But lately I have felt the pull of more than just the waters.”

Amber eyes flashed with delight. “Do you?”

A coy smile pulled at her lips. “Perhaps,” Jaina said flippantly, allowing her eyes to rove over the Banshee Queen’s powerful form. “I haven’t felt the pull of the land in so long; it’s an adjustment.”

“And how have you been _adjusting_ , little one?”

The low thrum of the Faerie Queen’s voice stirred something low in her hips, and Jaina pulled her thighs together tight to quell the heat simmering there. “I called you to me, did I not?”

The Banshee Queen cocked her head once more, an ear tilting towards her with interest. “Yes. You haven’t answered why. You have never bid me farewell before.”

Jaina dared to push the covers back, the creamy paleness of her thighs nearly gleaming in the moonlight. She saw the dark gleam of hunger unfurl behind the Banshee Queen's eyes, and bit her lip to suppress the urge to shudder at it.

“A gift for a gift,” she whispered. “Given with honest intentions.”

The shadows around the Banshee Queen came further alive, rippling in a wave of power that seemed to dim the room around them for an instant; a pulsing thrum that pulled the darkness itself around the broad frame of her.

The pressure of the room shifted, and Jaina felt herself swoon slightly. She swallowed, and the pressure eased in her ears, but then suddenly the Banshee Queen was looming closer and closer. Each step seamless and precise; soundless.

“And what, pray, would the Daughter of the Sea bestow me?” the Dark Lady purred, low and whispering as she perched herself at the side of Jaina’s bed. So close she could feel the ethereal thrum of power; smell the allure of forged steel and flowers. A stray tendril of darkness slithered up over the edge of the bed, curling up over the sheets like the black coil of a snake. It crept along the path towards her leg, the barest whisper of its glancing touch prickling the fine hairs along her skin.

Jaina felt her breath hitch in her chest, eyes locked on the flickering, fog-edged shape of it. She swallowed the heat in her throat, lifting her dream-heavy eyes to meet the Banshee Queen’s gaze again. In a burst of courage, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and strode past the Faerie Queen towards her vanity. Each step she took swayed like the pull of the tides along the shore, but Jaina’s hands found their way to the velvet box on the table.

The shadows rippled around her curiously, and from behind her, Jaina could feel the banshee hovering closer. Her fingers found purchase on the corded leather she sought, and curling it into her fist, she turned back towards the Queen.

She gasped sharply. The Banshee Queen loomed before her once more; so close their noses could nearly touch.

“That is an advantage you use too well,” she breathed, leaning back against the solid weight of the vanity.

The Banshee Queen grinned. “I would not be Queen if I did not use my gifts so, Sweet Child.” She tilted her head down and peered at Jaina’s hand. “What is it you have there, little one?”

Gripping the cord tight once, Jaina said, “Your hand, please.”

An elegant ear twitched as the Banshee Queen obliged her slowly, her glowing amber eyes boring into Jaina’s face. Jaina brought her lower lip between her teeth, clinging to the pain of it as she pressed the cord into the Queen’s palm. Her skin was cool to the touch, just as she remembered; colder than human flesh, more silken and soft and yet callused in places along her long fingers and around her broad palm.

Perhaps she once clung to weapons. A bow? To nock the arrow she had carved on the first day they’d met.

With eyes like endless whorls of fire, the banshee flexed her fingers at the touch, sliding them along Jaina’s wrist. The frantic beat of her pulse fluttered, and the Queen smiled triumphantly before she pulled away, the cord clutched in her hand.

“It isn’t enchanted,” Jaina began, a sudden rush of bashfulness warming her cheeks. “It’s not finely carved or delicately made. It is only sea glass.” It was a trinket from her childhood; sea glass that danced between shades of blue and green like the waters she loved the most. Her father had carved it for her, polished to a gleam; faded now, but cherished no less. Voice low and soft, Jaina said, “I have no gift worthy of the Fae Queen, but I hope that this gift of sentiment will appease you for now.”

Wordlessly, the fae queen peered down at her hand, turning the corded sea glass over in her grip. “A bracelet, then. From your childhood?”

Jaina inclined her head and felt it swim once more.

The Banshee Queen clasped it in her hand, the iridescent shade of blue-green glowing gently at her touch. When she looked up again, there was a faint flicker of something that Jaina could not quite place before the smooth, impassive mask returned. “I shall cherish it the same as I would the finest treasures.” With a wave of her hand, the bracelet disappeared in a plume of smoke, and once more Jaina saw her lips pull into a fanged smile.

“Indulge me once more, Sweet Daughter of the Sea, for I am a creature of greed.”

A hand reached forward and braced itself against the vanity, the slightest ghost of a touch glancing off Jaina’s hip. The electric feel of it made her gasp, and Jaina felt her eyes hood and glaze despite herself. The Banshee Queen pressed in that much closer; the space between them a narrow hair’s width. The cold heat of the fae’s form bled through her nightgown, blanketing her in a thrum of sensation, and Jaina shivered. She tilted her head further back to stare into the blazing embers again.

The flash of a pink tongue darted over a knife-edged fang before she dipped her face so low their breaths were one. “Spare me another gift,” she whispered, lascivious and purring. “You will be gone so long — surely I am deserving of a _taste_?”

“T-taste?”

“A kiss,” the Dark Lady purred, and the broad hand that came up to touch her cheek made Jaina shudder. “Given freely.” Her thumb stroked over the ridge of darkened freckles, and Jaina felt her legs beginning to buckle. “ _And you shall have whatever touch you wish in return_.”

Jaina gasped, and the answer came before she could reconsider. “Yes,” she whispered, sliding her own grip along the Queen’s slender wrist. “Only a kiss — n-no tricks or lies.”

“That is all I ask.”

The Banshee Queen loomed in, and Jaina felt the air in her lungs escape her. The solid weight of the Queen pressed her firmly in place, hip-to-hip, cold steel and leather against burning flesh as their lips pressed together. Gentle and soft first, an exploration of touch; and then the hand cupping her face tightened, and Jaina felt her mouth drop open as the taste of sweet and earth and steel flooded her senses.

Her breath hitched again when a solid thigh pressed between her legs, and the moan that came from her chest was ragged and keening. She slid her grip from the banshee’s wrist to broad shoulders, clinging onto buttery leather and a wisping cape that seemed to be made of nothing more than air. Jaina dropped her hips forward despite herself, a rush of heat and need roaring into a blaze beneath her skin.

The deadly edge of a fang grazed over her tongue and lips, and Jaina gasped.

A hand — perhaps it was a hand, perhaps it was something else entirely — slid along the skin of her thighs, creeping upwards over the tense muscle of her stomach. Trailing fingers dipped along the seam of one thigh, and then the other.

Jaina moaned into the kiss, tilting her head back when her lungs began to seize for air.

A low growl startled her; darker and hungrier than anything she’d ever heard before. Her grip on the Queen’s shoulder fell away from solid flesh, grasping at nothing.

She opened her eyes and found herself blinking up at the ceiling again. Sunlight cresting through the window. The sheets beneath her back, the pillows under her head.

The sheets clutched between her fingers.

A burning need between her hips; the wetness of it between her thighs.

The beat of her heart crawled into her throat, her skin prickling at the remnant of a phantom touch. She looked about the room and saw nothing; no sign of her dream ever being a reality. She reached out and touched Banshee Queen’s pendant, felt the thrum of power sparking against her skin.

 _Goodbye, then._ She gave the pendant a stroke with her thumb. _I will return to claim my touch another time._

There was no reply and no dancing breeze. Jaina swallowed back the taste of something lingering on her tongue and slid out of bed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there are creatures more deadly here

The dawn kissed the horizon over the seas, shades of flames and shimmering purple that swept across the calm sway of the waves. From atop the helm of the Sable Rose, Jaina watched the sun rise up into the waning swath of twilight, turned her face into it glowing warmth and the fresh wave of salt and shore that came with it. They would set sail soon. Though Jaina’s heart sang and swelled at the thought of feeling the familiar sway of the Rose beneath her feet ones more; a lingering ache remained.

Sighing, she reached down to stroke her fingers along the polished edge of the pendant. It was a shape she had no true experience with; abstract and foreign and something she knew to be deeply entwined with the realm of the fae.

Beneath her gentle touch, the pendant thrummed.

The muted sound of approaching footfalls caught Jaina’s attention and she turned her head just as a hand came out to slap her across the arm amicably before wrapping around her neck. She glanced down at the tapestry of tattoos adorning the lean tan arm.

Vika leaned her weight against Jaina, the beaded ends of her braids clacking together as she nudged her head against Jaina’s, staring out across the waters the same. “What a sight, eh, Captain?” she sighed, taking in a deep breath of the briny air. “I almost miss the smell of gull shit and the salt.” She gave Jaina an affectionate squeeze around the neck. “It’s been too long since we’ve sailed.”

“Hmm.” Jaina gave the arm around her a fond squeeze, eyes faraway. “The tides are eager to see us casting off.”

With another squeeze, Vika peered at her discerningly, narrowing slightly with mischief. “Has the Daughter of the Sea run aground?” she asked, wheedling. “Should I let the crew know?”

Jaina scoffed. “Nothing could root me in place. You know that.”

“And yet you say that as if you _want_ something to hold you down. Or _someone_. The offer still stands, Captain.”

Rolling her eyes, Jaina shrugged off her hold, turning to face the woman. Vika did not quite match her height, but the wild mane of hair around her head almost made up for the difference. She peered into eyes that were dark and ringed with kohl, and in the cast of sunrise, Jaina could see the flecks of fire within them. Leaning an elbow on the balustrade, Jaina regarded Vika curiously. “Where’s Ellos? I thought he’d be attached to your hip after being away for so long.”

Shrugging, Vika said, “He’s _your_ first mate, not mine.”

Jaina smiled a knowing smile but did not push. “Were you able to find the ink you wanted from the village?” she asked instead.

“With enough to spare for the journey east. I’ve sent the rest of the things down into the sick bay for inventory.” She peered at Jaina again, eyes roving. “You’re due a touch-up for your back piece soon.”

“I’ll be sure to book an appointment to see you.” From behind Vika then, Jaina caught the sight of a familiar pompadour, gleaming like flames in the sunlight.

“Ah,” the low voice intoned drolly. “I thought I smelled that vile perfume of yours wafting in the breeze.”

With a spark of something in her eyes, Vika turned to the person. “Funny you should say that, given that this is _your_ perfume I stole.”

Ellos gave her a haughty sniff, the bright emerald of his eyes darting to Jaina as he gave her a respectful nod. “All shipments and stocks are aboard and stowed, Captain.” His eyes slid back to Vika with a smirk. “Barring a few pests we picked up along the way, we should be ready to set sail.”

“I’ll show you _pest_ ,” Vika cooed, a deadly gleam in her eyes. Their gaze held for a moment before her lips pulled into a wicked grin.

“Vika — _don’t touch the hair!_ Don’t — _the pompadour is off limits, damn you!_ ”

Jaina watched with a fond, familiar sort of amusement as they tussled, but found her eyes wandering still towards the forest edge. The breeze danced through the leaves and shook the trees from within the depths of green, flitting down along the lapping waves and seafoam, and Jaina smelled the richness of dew and petrichor it brought with it.

The winds rose up in spiral, teasing the ends of her hair. She looked up into the cliffs once more but found no silhouetted figure there.

Sighing, she turned back to Ellos and Vika. “Anchors home,” she said, and they straightened to attention abruptly. “We’re losing daylight.”

Ellos saluted her, heels tapping together. “Aye, Captain.” He raised his voice into a roar over the balustrade. “ANCHORS HOME, LADS. THE ROSE NEEDS HER WATERING.”

A roar of voices lifted up at once; the resounding cry from her crew that came as one with the crash of a great wave against the bow of the Rose. Jaina watched them climb the shrouds and man the nests, spreading a hand out over the warm, well-loved wood of the Sable Rose’s wheel. Its peg fit perfectly in her grip; as though it were made for her touch alone, as though they were one and the same. The tides were rising around the ship, its song moving with each creak of wood and steel, and Jaina felt the tune of it building in her chest. It spilt outwards in a low croon of a shanty; soft first, steadily rising with each rush of the waves. From one; many — the voices of her crew joined in a harmonising chant and hum as they turned their faces to her.

They hoisted the sails and raised the anchors.

The Sable Rose returned to the sea once more.

 

\-------

 

The winds and waves took the Sable Rose across the waters of many a place.

Port cities and harbours around Azeroth welcomed the sight of any Kul Tiran ship, for trades and goods that only bloomed and thrived within the island’s fertile lands. Many knew the Rose most of all — first, for the Daughter of the Sea, and second for the trades and shipments it carried. There were no other places in Azeroth that grew peppers so sharp and spiced, no other realm that nurtured the earthy tea leaves that grew in Kul Tiras.

Jaina met each crowd of tradesmen at every port they docked in with the same drive and vigour as she always did, but oftentimes would find herself yearning for something she could not define.

With each port they docked at, Jaina wandered its towns and villages, and found herself wanting for the familiar shape of Kul Tiran taverns and dining hall. When it was time to set sail, she often caught the discerning look Vika would give her; the knowing drawl of Ellos when he came to give her reports. It was a journey they’d made a thousand times over, changing only in the shipments they brought, but Jaina took comfort in the familiarity of its path.

They travelled across Azeroth with the wind in their sails and shanties carried into the winds. For days and weeks and waning phases of the moon amidst the stars, Jaina sailed blue waters and found herself dreaming of green.

Their journeys were not all peaceful, certainly.

There were still things that lingered in the Endless Dark beneath the waves; things that even she as Daughter of the Sea could not control. There were nights when the mists and the fog gathered over the waters, and there was a call across the seas.

Those nights, the waters were always so still, so unmoving beneath the ballasts. In the glow of moonlight, they would catch glimpses of a terrifying, towering creature in the distance — they would hear her eerie croon.

There were some nights when the song called too close to the Rose; when the greener of Jaina’s crew would stare out into the mists with the unseeing gaze of the love-drunk and bewitched. They whose hearts were not quite set against the dangers of the Tides, who climbed the balustrades and shrouds and dove headlong into the cold embrace of the Abyss.

And so they were bound to the ship masts; twined together with ropes as they thrashed and wailed and keened to heed the call of the Sea Witch.

Some whispered of her beauty incomparable; others warned of wicked talons and writhing tentacles in place of legs.

All spoke of her siren song — the lure of death beneath the waves.

To calm her crew and soothe the roiling unease beneath the waves, Jaina sang the same. Her voice carried into the whispering dark, cutting across fog that laid like a visceral blanket of white against the gloom. She sang the tunes of her people and of the sea. She sang the hymns her father had sung before her, and his father before that.

From beside her, Ellos and Vika stood, watching the shifting clouds and parting fog grimly. At the helm of the ship, their voices carried together; a harmony of prayer behind the strength of the Daughter of the Tides.

A gathering of strength against the dark temptation of unseen things.

They could not hear her words, only the sweet croon of a woman’s melody from across the waters. No one else ever could — it was always a world narrowed down to the spaces of Jaina’s head, but she felt each word of the Sea Witch like the pull of the ocean under her skin. It crawled like spider webs over her fingers and bristled the hairs along her arms; warring sensations of power and weakness both.

She was not the only creature with dominion over the waters. It was only by her own strength of will that she could resist the allure of something so dark and sweet.

A pulse of energy spread from her chest, forged steel whose gleam could be seen in Jaina’s vibrant eyes. The waters roiled beneath the Rose, a slow-building roar of waves that seemed to wash away the cloying mist and fog.

Vika took a hitched breath beside her as the bound members of the crew began to thrash harder. “The Sea Witch is drawing closer,” she murmured faintly. “I can feel her pull.”

“Gird your loins, you fiend,” Ellos gritted, his hand tightening over the wheel. “The last thing we need is for her to drag us all into the Abyss because you couldn’t keep it in your pants.”

A shape came from the looming shadows; the allure of feminine curves and inhuman shapes. The form of the Witch was only just enough to make out in the fog, to smell the brine of her scales and the sweetness of a flower that had faded from existence.

“ _O Daughter_ ,” an ethereal purr came. “ _Have you come to play?_ ”

The Sable Rose creaked and groaned against the winds, its sails shuddering violently as the most stalwart of its crew scrambled to calm them.

“ _Sing to me, my sweet. I long to hear your voice embraced in mine._ ”

Jaina swayed, or perhaps the Rose did, and felt herself swallowing back a shudder. White mist unfurled around her like many-fingered hands; the touch of the Sea Witch that she had felt on her skin many times before. The urge for her feet to move towards the side of the ship was strong; the pull of the waters that lapped and roiled and bubbled black from the depths was mighty.

It was always like this.

This was a game she played on the path of Azshara’s shores.

Blunt nails cut into the meat of her palms and came away with rivulets of blood. Squeezing her eyes shut, she began a new hymn, louder and more powerful than the last.

Ellos let out a hiss, and glancing sidelong, Jaina saw him hook a hand into the back of Vika’s belts. “The Tides grace me, Vika, if I have to haul your sorry arse out of the waters again!”

“How could you resist her?” Vika moaned, straining slightly against his grip. “Don’t you hear her song? Can’t you feel the promise of her caresses on your skin?”

“Shall I flay you to spare you the thought?” he growled.

“You’re just _jealous_ —”

“Oh yes, _painfully_ jealous about the fact that I’m stronger-willed than you, you ostentatious little —”

“Quiet,” Jaina hissed. She reached out and stroked her fingers over the pendant, blood smearing warm and thick against the surface of it. It pulsed with renewed vigour; thrumming to life with a tinny sound that seemed to reach only her ears. She scraped her nail along its polished edge once more and felt it cold to the touch.

Something pinched at the skin of her chest, sharp like the sting of hot steel or the brush of thorns against flesh. It was a fleeting thing — just enough for a reminder as the carved pendant rippled with a strange sort of force, spectral and dark.

Aged, as if it had come from the Ancient Roots of the earth itself.

The reaching pull of the Sea Witch’s power recoiled, and Jaina almost grinned into the night at the outrage that poured from the mists. An undulating furl of tentacles roiled and writhed in the distance; the sway of the waves morphing into the hiss of a creature unknown. The Sable Rose jerked precariously; the sea burst forth in frothing waves around them. Wood groaned and steel strained as the winds blew a mad spire into the sails.

The ship leaned suddenly, and Jaina staggered against the balustrade. A cry of shock spread among the crew as they too clung to the masts and shrouds to keep from tipping headlong into black waters. Gripping tight to the aged wood, Jaina set her eyes across the waters, narrowed with intent as she raised her voice in a snarl to match the roar of the waves.

In the heady twilight of the endless black, Jaina’s eyes gleamed like sapphires. From her hands, the same glowing shade began to bleed into the splinters in the wood of the balustrade.

“ _Dare you turn your face from me, Child of the Tides? You would keep your voice from_ **_me_** _?_ ” The Sea Witch’s rage came in a wild shriek across the water, and Jaina flinched at the sting in her ears.

“I sing for the sea,” she growled, and her words echoed across the writhing waves. “I sing for my people.” A plume of strength unfurled from her, skittering across waters that calmed in a steady plane in its wake.

 _This_ was what it meant to be the Daughter of the Sea — this was what it meant to be bound so.

“ _You forget your place! It was I who blessed you! Your voice was mine in your loneliest moments!_ ”

Jaina’s eyes blazed like lightning; her voice snarled like thunder. “I sing for no one but _myself_.” She threw out a hand, clawed and commanding, and from around her neck the pendants glowed brighter than the moon.

The Sea Witch shrieked with outrage before the tides swallowed her again.

A great wave burst against the Rose, and the great ship rose against the waters in a precarious sway that flooded over the lower balustrades. The crew gave another shout, clinging to what they could, and Jaina stumbled back to the wheel, grasping its peg to steady the Rose with the combined strength of three.

When the waves had calmed and the waters stilled, the rippling flag of the Sable Rose broke through the mists. The eerie grip of the Sea Witch’s Song faded into nothingness, and Jaina felt her breath leave her in a shudder. Moonlight pierced through the clouds and stars danced like glittering diamonds on the waters. It was a tenuous silence filled with only the gentle lapping of the waves and the creak of aged wood; Jaina could hardly hear anything but for the sound of her beating heart.

The great pulse of strength from her pendants folded back onto themselves; like the rolling of the waves away from shore. They were swallowed back into the anchor, into petrified wood. Jaina touched them both and found her father’s anchor icy to the touch.

The Banshee Queen’s pendant burned with such a heat she was sure it had scorched her flesh.

Around her, the crew began to gather themselves. The green ones were cut free, and the green-faced heaved over the side of the Rose. Vika blinked in the moonlight, pale and sweating cold in the night. She looked at Jaina as if waking from a dream.

“C-Captain?” She swayed on her feet slightly, and Ellos braced her with his grip on her belts again, gentler now.

“Nice to see your brain has vacated your loins,” Ellos murmured, but squeezed her waist.

Jaina pressed her lips together and turned her eyes back onto the rest of the crew. “Find your feet and check the crew,” she said grimly. “We sail for Kul Tiras.”

 

\------

 

The journey home could not have ended quickly enough. She slept little and ate only when her body ached for a meal; each night, the Captain of the Sable Rose stood on the helm and watched the waves. For however much Jaina thrived on the seas, the pull of home still filled her heart with a deep warmth of relief. More so in those moments when the Call of the Void and its Creatures became too much to bear. As they sailed into the bay, Jaina turned her face once again to the tallest cliffs and the rustling leaves of the looming forest. Her crew sang as they toiled, and as the tune of _O Guide Us Safely Home_ carried itself up into the breeze, Jaina’s eyes watched the shadows for the ripple of armour made of moonlight.

The anchors had barely dropped before Jaina found herself staggering off the ramp, braving the last breadth of space between the Rose and land with a running jump. She could hear Ellos and Vika calling for her, the alarm and bewilderment cutting through the shouts of the rest of the crew.

“Tides have mercy — Jaina! You mad cow, what are you doing?!”

“The Keep is thataway, Captain! Captain? _Jaina!"_

Jaina did not heed them. She did nothing but run as fast as her legs could carry her.

She ran for the woods, and she did not look back.

 

\------

 

Jaina burst through the clearing on a heaving breath, staggering on coltish legs as her weary eyes found blood-red caps ringed in a circle. She collapsed down onto the grass, exhaustion bleeding deep in her bones as her legs at last gave way beneath her weight. Gasping back a breath, she blinked away the blackness creeping into her vision and stared at the dew-tipped blades of grass between her fingers.

The pendant between her breasts pulsed with warmth. A shadow fell over her then, and Jaina looked up to the touch of leather gloves and the scent of cold steel enveloping her.

A low croon crawled into her ear and settled in her chest. “I have you, little one.”

Gleaming fangs and blazing eyes filled the space before her, and Jaina clung to the touch of buttery leather and frosted steel. “B-Banshee —”

There was a flutter of mists and shadows, and Jaina felt herself being swept into the embrace of something intangible and entirely encompassing. In a voice soft and chiding, she heard the Queen say, “Sweet thing, you haven’t been resting.”

“I came home,” Jaina gasped, and for a moment allowed herself the selfish pleasure of relishing the press of their bodies together. “I’m —” She blinked, rapidly and dazedly as her vision cleared and the forest came alive in verdant green around her. Birds sang overhead and insects chirped amidst the swaying leaves, and as the cast of sunlight broke through the canopy, Jaina realised she could still see the ring.

Furrowing her brows, she glanced sharply at the Faerie Queen, nails cutting pale crescents into the leather of her armour. “You left the ring.”

An elegant ear sloped slightly with amusement, though the Queen’s lips were pressed into a thin line. “Of course.” She reached out a hand with an idle sweep, and Jaina saw a bed of moss bloom over a nest of roots; sweet-smelling and soft to the touch.

The ethereal grasp on her body eased, and Jaina sighed with great relief as her head fell back against the familiar cradle. Peering up into the canopy of fading light, she saw the hovering form of the fae; her gilded hair rippling in threads of gold and her eyes like muted embers. “I thought the fae were bound to it.”

The feline curve of her lips made Jaina’s heart ache and unfurl with longing and relief at once. “Did you really think a faerie ring could hold the _Queen_?”

She swallowed and tasted rust. From above her, the leaves rustled, and she watched as a handful of black cherries fell into her lap once more. Gathering them into her hands, Jaina smiled wanly up at the trees before peering back at the fae.

“Eat,” the Queen said. “Gather your strength, little one. Your journey was long and perilous.”

Warily, Jaina plucked up a cherry between her fingers, eyeing the Queen as she stroked along its glossy skin. “What is the price for this sweet flesh?”

“It is no price of mine,” came the reply. “Was it not the forest who gave it to you?”

“And who is but the guardian and queen of the forest?” Jaina asked, though her mouth watered at the thought of tasting its sweet-tart flesh.

The Queen clicked her tongue mildly, rocking back on her heels to peer down at Jaina over her nose. “A Queen does not waste her time with such easy folly. Were you so easily tricked, Sweet Daughter; I would have wooed you with something far sweeter.”

“I can never be too sure,” Jaina mumbled, pressing a cherry between her lips. Flavours sharp and sweet burst on her tongue, and she savoured the taste of it lingering in her throat.

The Banshee Queen tilted her head, peering at her as a predator would at a curiosity. “You look pale, Daughter. Did that Sea Witch harm you?” The shadowed edges of her cloak roiled into an undulating shroud of tipped blades behind her, and her ember eyes began to glow.

“N-no, no,” Jaina said quickly, and wiped fingers that came away stained blood-red on her breeches. “It’s just — I’ve never seen her so...angry.” There were times before that she had been victim to the Sea Witch’s wrath. It was no pleasant memory, and Jaina watched as the Dark Lady turned her elegant face into the rising moonlight.

Distantly, the Queen said, “She and I have...history. I rule the land as she rules the sea. Our bloods are bound to each.”

Carefully nibbling around the stone of the cherry, Jaina dropped it into the grass beside her and watched as it was swallowed down by the earth itself. “I heard stories before...of the Sisters Three. Was she..?”

The Banshee Queen once more thrust her nose into the air, sneering haughtily. “There is no sister more conceited than I.” She shook her head, as if the very thought was too incredulous to even consider. “No, she is no sister of mine.”

“You had sisters, though,” Jaina pressed, for she was a sailor, and daring ran through her veins as much as the sea did. “I know your stories.” Too well; now she knew them all too well. Stories read from the lore of the ancient tomes buried among forgotten stories of the Times Before, and the Ancient Wars of Heroes.

Stories of the Great Fall, and the Sisters Three that fell with it.

A hush fell through the forest; birds did not sing and living creatures did not breathe. The trees did not sway and the leaves did not dance. With a voice that was as cold as the waters in the deepest frost, the Banshee Queen said, “Do you?”

A wild shiver rode down Jaina’s spine and clung to the nerve endings of her hips. “You are her.”

“Who, little one?”

“She Who Died for the Land.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a whisper on the winds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to everyone who is still along for the ride: thank you
> 
> you're all wonderful good beans

The forest went silent around them. The sunlight hid away behind shadows, blanketing the space in muted, pastel shades of colour — as if it had been bled away. The leaves did not rustle and the cicadas did not chirp; it was as though all life within the woods had died away to only them.

Only she and the Banshee Queen.

With her regal face smooth and masked with an unsettling coldness, the Queen of the Faes asked, “What do you know of She Who Died for the Land, little one? Are these yet more tales told by candlelight to frighten your young ones to bed?”

Jaina's brow furrowed, and the taste of the cherries so sharp on her tongue made her jaw ache with the sting. “I read them in books,” she said. “I’ve been — learning more about the stories of your kind. Of the land.”

“And what did these tales reveal to you, little one?” the banshee drawled, with a wry sort of amusement that prickled at Jaina’s nerves mildly. “Did they speak of my monstrosity? The claws and fangs and cloven hooves?”

She frowned. “Of course not.” The fae were creatures of deadly beauty; whyever would there be tales of beasts? “You — the fae are no monsters.”

A slow, bitter smile spread across the Queen’s pretty lips, and beneath the curve of them Jaina saw the flash of bladed teeth. “Ah, my sweet one. How very little you know.” Straightening her back, she began to pace around the exterior of the ring; the dark coils of her cloak brushing against the blood red caps. “Speak of your tales, then. Tell me what you presume to know of me, Sweet Daughter. Humans have spent generations weaving their own tapestry from the threads of my people’s history.”

Jaina frowned again, and tried to recall the tales she’d spent countless hours and days reading. “You are — _were_ — one of the Sisters Three. You ruled these lands before man could even think to claim it.” Eons, it must have been. Generations had come and gone, and still the tales spoke of the Sisters. There were no true names hidden within the tomes, only titles, and Jaina wondered how much of their history was hidden away the same.

The Banshee Queen’s lips curved into another bitter smile. “And yet to whose hands did they fall?”

“The Crusades,” she breathed.

It was a time in history not many preferred to ever acknowledge. Not even those most zealous about the purity of races and religion dared to speak of the bloodshed the Crusades had wrought. Still, it had come from her lips, and so Jaina could only press on.

“They swept the land like a plague. A corruption.” The forest bristled around them, and Jaina forced back a shudder at the cloying weight that filled the air. “Those who dared to stand in their way were cut down; villages and cities razed to the ground.”

A biting gust of wind rustled into the clearing, and Jaina rubbed at her arms to soothe its chill. The Queen turned to her then, a discerning look in her amber eyes. With a short wave of her hand, the winds died away and the forest was still.

Jaina peered up at her warily. “I mean no offense —”

“You have spoken none,” the Queen replied primly, reaching an elegant hand up to brush what looked to Jaina as stardust and moonlight from her shoulder. 

“I can see that I’ve upset you,” she continued carefully.

Soundless feet moved towards her then, the wisping mists of a cloak made of shadows rippling, and Jaina suddenly found herself in the shadow of the Faerie Queen that came to loom by the tree. Once more, with a voice like smoke and twilight, she whispered, “Have you?”

Caught in the gaze of eyes like smouldering embers and surrounded by the sharp scent of steel and flowers, Jaina felt a faint thrill of fear and exhilaration stirring in her belly. It thrummed in her veins, twitching in her fingers, a daring wish to reach out and touch this deadly being — to caress the Faerie Queen’s cheek as she had once before. Instead, she swallowed back a breath and shrugged. “I don't know. I've read stories, from a time before. Were your sisters —?”

The Queen spoke once more, and it came like the rustle of leaves overhead. “Tread lightly, Sweet Child.” Jaina could hear the warning in the lilting words, but stayed her tongue. “This line of questioning may yield answers you won’t like to hear.”

Jaina bit down on the inside of her cheek and lowered her gaze. Exhaustion began to weigh heavy in her bones; settling deep like the festering chill of the winds. It had been a long journey home. “Forgive me,” she mumbled, leaning back against the plush moss of a twisted tree bark to peer up at the Queen through weary hooded eyes. “I forget my place.”

The Queen blinked, and her elegant ears flickered with something like surprise. It was gone in the next instant, replaced once more with haughty amusement. “So meek in the face of reproach. Where is your sailor’s blood now, Sweet Daughter?”

The coy tilt of the Queen’s head only did so much to soften the blow, but in her weary state, Jaina felt the sting keenly. “A sailor knows which waves to fight and which to ride.”

“And which was the Sea Witch to you?”

Jaina blinked. Surely that was not a colour of jealousy there? “She and I have... _history_ the same,” she said, looking away at the soft sway of leaves and flickering sunlight. “You know me as the Daughter of the Sea; as She Who Tides the Waves and every other name they think to call me.” The bitter edge of her words was something that came unbidden, but Jaina made no effort to hide it.

“I wasn’t always for the sea. Not like this. Not for _her_.”

“Then for whom, little one?”

A wave of sadness washed over her then, and Jaina looked down at the anchor around her neck. It was ever present; ever constant. The weight of it was a grounding force amidst the tides, a reminder of the legacy her father had left behind. Years it had been since Daelin Proudmoore died, swept away by the very waters he loved most, and still Jaina felt a pang of grief tremble in the tips of her fingers.

“My father,” she whispered. “Long dead now. This and the sea are all I have left of him.” 

The Queen made a thoughtful sound, and when she spoke next, it was with a gentleness Jaina had not thought her capable of. “The loss of a loved one is a heavy burden to carry alone, Fair One. Take comfort in knowing that you have the love of your mother and your people to shoulder it with you.”

Jaina peered at her carefully, bowing her head shyly as she thumbed her father’s pendant still. Beside it then, she felt her fingers brush the cold weight of petrified wood. Stroking her finger along its edge, she lifted it from her blouse and peered at it in the light.

Glowing eyes brightened at the sight, her glorious brows lifting in pleasant surprise. “I’m pleased to see you keeping my favour...so close to heart, Sweet One.” One long finger came forth to stroke the back of her knuckle against it, and Jaina shivered when it thrummed to life. Amber eyes flickered upwards then, thoughtful. “I hope it brought you whatever small comfort it could while you were adrift.”

“It was,” she replied, and the warmth of her words carried into her gaze. “It...I was glad to have it with me when we crossed the waters of the Sea Witch.” Jaina puffed out a breath at the memory, pulling her lips into something between a smile and a grimace. “She did not take too kindly in knowing I had the favour of another with me. I should’ve known better than to guide the Rose so close to her.”

The banshee made a chiding sound at her, like the snap and rustle of leaves and twigs underfoot. “Perhaps now you’ll learn to keep some of that daring for the land, Sweet Daughter,” she said. “Perhaps some time ashore might curb that foolishness.”

Jaina chuckled. “Foolish is a kinder word than what my mother would call me, I think.”

Sparkling amber eyes flashed at her then, and on the Queen’s lips there came a feline smile. “And what was it that your mother called you before?”

Jaina stared at her in disbelief, and when she opened her mouth to speak, all that came forth was a laugh. She clapped her hands over her lips, eyes widening with shock as the chiding voice in the back of her mind warned her of such disrespect in the face of a fae — in the face of _the Queen_ — would surely cost her dearly.

“Forgive me,” she sputtered, a blaze of warm rushing into her cheeks. “I did not mean —”

The Dark Lady grinned at her still, eyes brighter than a roaring flame. “Why would you ever apologise for such a delightful sound?” She loomed in ever closer; so close Jaina could smell the tulips in her hair and the leather of her armour. “Such melody even in your laughter, little one. What other noises do you make so sweetly?”

The heat in her cheeks flooded rapidly down into her belly. Despite herself, Jaina pressed further back against the moss-covered bark, breathless and eyes hooded low. “Haven’t you heard my songs on the waves?”

“Ah, so you _do_ sing for me,” the Queen purred, and with the confidence known only to royalty, reached out to span her touch along Jaina’s hip. “Do you keep me in your thoughts when you make other sounds as sweet?”

Jaina shivered at the touch; like the caress of cold steel that bled through her breeches and seemed to fuse into her skin. A whimper dared to crawl up her throat, kept at bay by sheer will as she stared up at the Queen with the gaze of one deep in drink. “Perhaps only in my dreams, my Twilight Queen.”

The Dark Lady’s eyes blazed an entirely different flame. “Is that an invitation, Sweet One?” Her elegant fingers crept along Jaina’s waist boldly.

What response that Jaina had thought to speak was taken from her throat when a call rose up from beyond the trees. A rustle climbed through the tallest branches then; the fluttering of wings through the leaves. The sharp cry of a bird of prey pierced the still air, and the Queen’s ears pricked upright as she turned her gaze skyward. They swivelled and slanted, as if searching for Something Beyond before a thoughtful look came over her features.

A drifting breeze flitted between them when the Queen moved away, and Jaina felt instantly bereft at the loss. 

Turning her gaze to Jaina once more, the banshee said, “The daylight is waning, little one. Best you find your way home. No doubt your mother frets after you.”

Peering up through the trees, Jaina could see the slow shift of day into the richer hues of dusk; the idle crawl of the sun moving towards the horizon that spilt shades of amber and violet through the leaves. It was true that her body ached. She yearned desperately for the tender embrace of a hot bath, perhaps a meal, and then the comforts of her bed, but a restless weight began to fester in her chest.

Her teeth worried the edge of her lower lip for a moment. At length, she said, “I would've hoped to spend more time with you.” She glanced at the Queen furtively. Her hands pulled together despite herself, wringing themselves idly to stave off the urge of being embraced by the Queen once again. “I’ve...been gone awhile. I thought we might…”

“Might what, Sweet Daughter?” the Queen prompted, and the slow and sensuous lilt of her words made Jaina flush.

“ _Reacquaint ourselves_ ,” Jaina whispered.

The Dark Lady crooned at her with delight, and her glowing amber eyes made something deep in Jaina’s belly quiver with anticipation. “...perhaps when you are better rested, little one. Who knows — you may even dream of me tonight.”

Still Jaina hesitated.

With a coy tilt of her head, the Queen asked, “Do you require an escort, O Daughter of the Sea? Have you been gone so long from land that your feet have forgotten its path home?”

With a bold thrust of her chin, Jaina replied, “Would you spare a mortal such an honour?”

“Ah, but you are no mere mortal, are you, Sweet Child?”

Jaina raised an eyebrow curiously. “What am I, then?”

A gentle hand came forth, and Jaina felt her breath stifled in her chest as a gloved thumb stroked across her cheek with a tenderness she had not anticipated. “Have you not the favour of the Queen?”

The call came once more, closer then, and when Jaina tore her eyes away to look towards the sound. When she looked back, there was only a plume of smoke and the dancing light of fireflies. With a shuddering breath and disappointment jagged in her chest, Jaina turned to face the approaching figure, braced to fight as she reached into her breeches and brought forth her dagger.

The bushes rustled vigorously, leaves tumbling into a layer of bright reds and oranges. A figure stumbled into the clearing — and then another, shoving at each other as they staggered to their feet. _“Don’t push me, you rat bastard —”_

_“You tripped me, you hag!”_

Jaina blinked incredulously, shoulders heaving with relief as she tucked her dagger away. “Ellos? Vika? What on earth are you doing here?” she asked, moving towards the pair.

Ellos rose to his feet, nudging Vika away as he straightened his tunic and smoothed down his breeches. “Apologies, Captain, but you were gone long, and your mother hadn’t seen you yet.” He peered around the clearing curiously, lingering on the faerie ring suspiciously as Vika stumbled forward.

“You spoke to my mother?” she cried. No doubt, Katherine Proudmoore was preparing an army to search for her only daughter.

“We wanted to be sure you hadn’t gone away and cracked yer skull open from the way you were running blind into the woods,” Vika said, grasping Jaina by the shoulders and inspecting her closely. “Neither hair nor stitch out of place. Good.”

Jaina sighed, brushing Vika’s hold from her body. “I’m alright. I didn’t realise I’d been gone so long.”

With cautious steps forward, Ellos asked delicately, “What were you doing out in the trees so late? I’ve heard the stories they tell of this ring; I can feel it crawling over my skin.” He rubbed at his arms in emphasis as his emerald eyes narrowed warily at the faerie ring once more. The woods around them had gone still, tranquil and soft in the rapidly waning sunlight.

“That might be the lice —”

“Vika,” Jaina chided, elbowing her mildly. Sighing once more, she took hold of each of them by the elbow, guiding them away from the ring and out of the clearing. “Come on. I’m sure my mother will have much to say if we dawdle any longer.”

“She did seem rather peaky when we told her,” Vika offered.

\----------

 

True enough, Jaina found her mother waiting at the door when they returned, pale-faced and fuming. It was only by the presence of Vika and Ellos that she was spared the thorough tongue-lashing that Katherine had no doubt intended to unleash upon her, and for that Jaina was grateful. 

So grateful she was, that Jaina invited them to stay for dinner.

It was a pleasant enough meal, in between Ellos’ wild tales of the merchants they encountered throughout their journey and Katherine’s pointed and disapproving looks. Jaina was only thankful for the way Vika charmed her mother through glasses of port and the tattooist’s natural ability for coquetry. For however pleasantly the meal warmed her belly, dinner could not have ended quickly enough.

By the time Jaina begged off from dinner, the night had settled fully over the land. Dancing starlight and the rich scent of earth and sea came through the open windows, and she kissed them all chastely goodnight before retreating back into the confines of her chambers.

She soaked in the bath for as long as she could stand it; until her skin flushed red and Jaina could feel the heat bleeding from her very bones. The summer night made her bedchambers pleasantly cool, and though her skin prickled with gooseflesh, her windows remained open. She changed quickly into her nightgown and crawled eagerly beneath the covers of her bed. Tucked between her breasts, the Queen’s Favour pulsed faintly with power, and Jaina shivered.

Sleep came quickly then, and she embraced it without complaint.

When she opened her eyes next, her cheek was laid upon a bed of moss amidst a flowering field of tulips. Blinking back the heavy sand of sleep from her lids, Jaina pushed upright, peering about her cautiously. It was the same fields, she knew. The tulips swayed and bent the same; the scent of them sharp and sweet the same. Over yonder, there —

A figure cast in shadow the same.

“Banshee Queen?” she murmured, rising to her feet. It was as if she were aboard the Rose still; the earth that swayed and rolled like the brush of growing waves against its hull. She walked with the sway of deep dreams and something not entirely her own body, until at last she came upon the figure.

The Queen turned to her then, feline eyes and smile flashing with delight. “Hello, little one.” Her armour gleamed in moonlight, and behind her the misting form of her cloak writhed into eager coils.

Resplendent, as she always was. Gilded and gleaming.

Jaina smiled, dazed and dreamy. “I didn’t think you’d actually be here.”

“Did you not speak of _reacquainting ourselves_ in the woods, Sweet Daughter?” came the reply, and the Queen smiled crooked and coy.

“Remind me, perhaps,” she replied glibly, with a coy tilt of her head the same. “I don’t recall getting your name?”

The Queen laughed, a melody so sweet that Jaina could taste it on her tongue. “My, I have certainly missed your boldness, little one.” 

“It’s my sailor’s blood,” Jaina replied, smirking faintly. “You thought it shy before; but now you have it in full.”

The flowering field swayed soundlessly as the Queen stepped forward then, an encompassing presence as she reached forth and stroked the back of her fingers over Jaina’s cheek. Leaning in close, she whispered, “Perhaps I might have other things of yours in full.” The cold tip of a nail caressed along the elegant slope of a cheekbone. “Your name, perhaps.”

Jaina’s lips parted without thought, a gasp caught in her chest as the Queen’s finger stroked along the plush shape of her lower lip and lingered there. The low stirring heat in her belly made her hands restless, and she curled them tight at her sides. “Perhaps not my name, but am I not owed a _touch_?” she murmured, eyes hooded and heady.

“And where,” came the growling purr; rumbling deep in her chest and beside her ear. “Would you like this touch, Sweet Daughter?”

A shudder crawled up her spine, and Jaina’s eyes glazed with a slow-burning hunger. “Shall I whisper it to the winds?”

It came to her in a rush then — a name. Read from the books of a port city in the high North of the Great Sea; the name of an ancient legacy that had passed from renown into ruin. Stories told across the cultures of those who presided in winding spires and worshipped the Sun and Moon together.

“Windrunner,” she whispered, eyes wide, and the night went still around her. “You were a Windrunner.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the daughter of the sea remembers the poison that hides behind sly words and coy smiles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 84 years later.....

It was as if time itself had stopped. The Queen’s face slackened, first with shock, and then a cold fury. Black tendrils swelled and writhed in a dark plume around her; a halo of rage encompassing the blazing glare of eyes that bled red. A wild cacophony of noise swallowed the field; the violent rustling of trees and leaves made to bend at the whim of a torrential breeze that brought to mind the sound of snapping bones. So sharp it was, a living creature of chaos even to Jaina’s sailor ears, that the Daughter of the Sea could not help but flinch.

The swaying tulips around them stilled and wilted into ash, dying away into an empty plain whose colour is she could not will back into place.

It was a dream still, surely. But perhaps, no longer her own. 

The banshee swept forward in a surge of mist, a bristling hiss of air that bristled like the sea before the first strike of lightning. An ominous weight built in Jaina’s chest and sank its roots deep into her belly.

In a voice that was cold and contemptuous, the Queen said, “I see you’ve been to the Northern country.”

Jaina swallowed back a curdling fear. “I — we visit many lands when we sail. We trade with merchants in a port city up north. I found some books there and — they told the same tales.”

“Faerie tales are not all the same, little one.” The Queen gave her a chiding look, and Jaina looked away with shame.

“But this one was,” she insisted, for fear was not a familiar friend for long. “Three sisters. The fall of a great legacy. The collapse of a nation —”

The flowers rustled sharply around them, and in the fragrant sweetness of the field, Jaina caught the scent of iron and rust.  The Queen spoke with a cool fury so sharp it nearly stung. “I know the stories all too well, little Daughter. Where did you hear that name?”

She frowned slightly. “In books,” she repeated, though a curdling weight in her belly warned Jaina of the real dangers that came from angering the Faerie Queen. “Lores and legends.”

“ _Where?_ ” the fae repeated, but from her velvet throat it came like steel.

It wrought a shiver down Jaina’s spine once more. On a breath, as if spellbound, she said, “...Silvermoon. The rebuilt city.”

The Queen’s face tightened, and her amber eyes took on a gleam that made Jaina’s knees tremble. “Rebuilt,” she repeated, and within the slow drawl of the word, there was a heavy weight of something almost too profound to name. The curling mists of her cloak rose up, sweeping across the barren field.

Jaina felt the phantom caress of them against her bare ankles and shivered at the chill.

“There was a time when all that was left of that city was ruins,” she said, and her words carried on the breeze as a whisper. Her shoulders shifted, her brows drooped, and very suddenly Jaina became aware of the burdens of time that weighed on even a creature as timeless as a banshee. “At times, I forget...the passage of time in the mortal realm moves so differently.”

Perhaps it was because she was a sailor, or because she was as she was, Jaina stepped forward boldly. Thrusting out her chin, she said, “I saw statues built in the name of their fallen heroes. Sisters who fought and died for their land. For their home. Perhaps...you might know them well.”

The Queen laughed. The melody of it was nothing sweet to Jaina’s ears; it made the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. “Am I as you say, sweet one? A hero and a horror?” She loomed close then, so close the shape of her blotted out the light of the waning sun. The blaze of it became the embers of her hungry eyes; the curve of the crescent moon became the feral grin of her pretty lips. “Perhaps I might ask for a boon — a recompense for such a false claim.”

“And what of _my_ boon, good queen?” she asked, thrusting her chin out coyly. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that which is owed to me.”

Blinking, the fae before her narrowed incandescent eyes. “A touch is owed, yes.” The allure of such a promise came with the heavy undertone of a touch far more violent than the one the Queen had taken from her that night. “But such games fall short of this supposed realisation you’ve confronted me with.”

Jaina felt a shiver crawl down her spine but set her jaw firmly. “Tell me that I am wrong,” she challenged. “That you are not one of the Windrunner sisters. A legacy that was torn asunder by humans.”

The smile fell away into a curious look. The Queen tilted her head. “Why would a fae ever give you such a thing, fair one?”

“I don’t recall asking for your name,” Jaina replied mildly. “But your evasion of an answer tells me enough.”

Perhaps the Queen stepped forward; perhaps Jaina saw her and knew the shape of her to unhinge at the shoulders, broader and darker. The sharp waft of petrichor and steel and flowers became a cloying scent on the breeze. “...do you not know the power you wield now, little one?”

She swallowed. There was a weight in her belly that was too warm to be fear, and yet too heavy for anything else. “...perhaps not as well as I should.”

Misting tendrils writhed around them, the sound of snapping branches and rustling leaves echoing as the Banshee Queen stepped back. Her face smoothed over into a glacial mask of indifference. “Speak my name, then. Be you so brave. Only know this — should you name me a Windrunner, best you be certain of which you speak.”

“There were but three sisters,” Jaina said. “Surely I could not mistake you too much for anyone else.”

The Queen cocked a brow, though upon her lips, a veiled smirk curved. It seemed to Jaina like a show of teeth. “Name them all, perhaps. You may yet be mistaken.”

Jaina swallowed. Was it still a land of dreams that they were inhabiting if it all felt too real? She knew that instinct pushed for her to tread carefully; to veer away from tempting the mercurial disposition of the Queen. But she was Daughter of the Sea — she knew fear well. She would not turn her face from it.

“...could you be Vanessa? The youngest?” The banshee gave a scoff, but she ignored it with a shake of her head. “Certainly not. You are too bold; too strong-willed for the delicacy the stories spoke of.”

Amber eyes flashed bright like sparking flames, but Jaina could sense that the looming threat of the banshee’s anger was dissipating into a slow-boiling tension. Steeling her spine, she pressed on. “Perhaps, then, you are the eldest; Allegra? No — you’re too proud in your chin.”

The threat was gone, but the promise of the Queen’s looming form drew closer. A gloved hand reached out, and Jaina felt the whisper of a caress along her cheek. “...who is left, then, child?”

“...could you be the one named Sylvia?” she whispered, tilting her face into the touch. “Mighty and brave and altogether glorious in gilded armour.” She remembered the statue built in the heart of Silvermoon; the proud jaw and fine nose and long, elegant ears. Warriors and leaders of their people, cut down before their time.

She remembered the familiar curving smile of the sister who Fell for her People.

The Queen smiled a feline smile and dissipated into black mist that danced like the shifting leaves in the breeze. It moved like a serpent, as fluid as the coil of silken cords around Jaina’s bare ankles, the cold brush of them slithering boldly beneath the hemline of her nightgown. 

Her voice came in a hissing echo in Jaina’s ear. “Such cheek, Sweet Daughter. I know your mind...why would you not use this knowledge against me? Against the Queen of the Fae?”

Jaina knew it; perhaps as a fleeting thought. A word of warning from a lifetime ago. Whispered beneath sheets of girlhood nights with best friends and other sailors’ daughters. Tales of the power behind a name — the secret names they gave one another. The power of a title. A calling. That was what she knew best.

She understood the weight a name could carry; the power it held when spoken from a wicked tongue.

Truthfully, she answered, “It is as you say; I cannot know for sure that I hold wield such a weapon. If I do, then why would I abuse such an honour?”

With the keen look burning in her eyes, the Queen tilted her head slowly. “Surely you would command a creature like myself at your whim?” the fae simpered. “Banish me from the land and liberate your people so that they might frolic through the woods without fear.”

Boldness returned to her like the first lungful of air after a dive, and Jaina embraced it readily. Peering at the Queen from beneath her lashes, she said, “Why would I ever want to be rid of you, O Queen? Do I not wear your favour around my neck still? Unless you don’t think me worthy of it now.” 

The Queen’s voice came in a swath of sound, reverberating from deep within a hollow chest. “Do you embrace me so readily, Sweet Daughter? What foolish flock would lay to rest with a wolf?”

“I see no wolf,” Jaina whispered. “Only a Queen.” She reached up and touched the polished surface of the pendant —

She gasped as the mists unfurled further into a writhing mass of tendrils, the phantom weight of them encircling her arms, legs, shoulders, waist. She became consumed by sensation; there but not, ethereal and altogether too real. She felt her feet lift off the ground, grass prickling the soles them as the swirling breeze embraced her. 

Cold steel. Flowers. Petrichor.

A swath of black velvet fluttered before her, and amidst the wild rush of them, Jaina found herself beguiled by blazing crimson eyes. She was weightless and buoyant at once; caught somewhere between air and sea. She opened her mouth — and felt the air in her lungs become swallowed by mist.

It was strange, certainly.

What was even stranger was the absence of _fear_ in her belly. Only a slow-stirring heat.

Very suddenly she was faced with the Banshee Queen; so close their lips could have touched. 

“Sweet thing,” came the ethereal croon; a siren song of delight and danger. “Haven’t you learned? What pelt a wolf would wear to woo its prey.”

A flash of fang, a wicked laugh, and Jaina surrendered her lips to the hungry smile...

 

\-----

 

She woke with a gasp and the spill of sunlight blinding in her eyes.

There in bed, she felt her lungs heave, her heart beat with desperate thrums of air. She swallowed each breath with relish, savoured its grounding force in her chest as she swept her hair from her face. Blindly, she reached to her neck, exhaling with relief when her fingers brushed the solid weight of her father’s anchor.

Her fingers sought petrified wood then, and shivered at the eerie coolness of its surface.

The trinket hadn’t left her neck since the day the Queen had blessed her with it. Its languid pulse of power became a comfort as much as the weight of her father’s legacy around her neck, but something stirred in her chest like a festering wound.

Glib words and coy smiles had surely been too familiar with the Banshee Queen. She had forgotten the threat such a being of power could promise a human that dared think herself an equal.

Unclasping her necklace carefully, she took the pendant in hand. Time, perhaps, would heal the Queen’s ego and humble her the same.

Rummaging through her bedside drawer, she found a pouch of velvet; small enough to fit in only half the size of her palm. Peering down at the petrified wood, she traced her finger over its intricate carving for a moment longer, savouring its texture against her thumb before slipping it away into the pouch.

She tied a fastidious bow and kept the pouch away once more, and for an instant, she found her neck painfully barren.

From her open window, there was a cry on the breeze; a hungry gull from the idle pier. Dawn had long since broken, and Jaina knew it wouldn’t be long before her mother would come searching. She untwined the sheets from around her waist, and as she moved, felt the tender brush of her thighs together; the slickness and sensitivity that came from wanton heat.

She exhaled, and it trembled in the depths of her chest.

She pushed the sheets back slowly, moving her legs with care. Each brush of them against the silken sheets and the pliant heat of each other made rivets of sensation climb over her skin like the phantom caress of sensuous shadows. She slid her hand along the sheets, gripping them tight under her fingers, and breathed deep.

She laid back against them and slid her hand between her thighs.

A memory of cold steel and flowers came to her then, and Jaina allowed herself an instant of selfish indulgence.

 

\-------

 

Jaina did not return to the woods for some time. 

The Sable Rose remained anchored on the swaying waters of the dock, rocking against restless waves and billowing winds. She kept to the shore and swam in the ocean; became immersed readily into its depths as it unfurled around her in an embrace of a long-held lover. Would that she could have lingered in the waters, but she knew the echoing pull of the Sea Witch from the Abyss on the tides. She thought it wiser to refrain from tempting another sovereign power to temper.

Some nights, she slept ashore, and other nights, slept nestled in her captain’s quarters on the Rose.

...some nights, she dreamed of flowering fields of tulips and burning red eyes. The writhing caress of a thousand touches and the taste of a velvet mouth. The deadly touch of fangs against her most intimate parts.

Those nights, she spent buried into the pillows, muffling her cries as her hand moved feverishly between trembling thighs. Some mornings, she would swim deep into the depths of the sea and embrace it as wantonly as it did her. Other mornings she stood at the forest's edge and stared up into its leaves with a deep longing. Vika and Ellos met her with strange looks each time, but Jaina looked and saw only the absence of amber eyes and a feline smile.

Most nights, though, she sang.

She sang from the helm and from the decks, eyes turned towards the woods with a longing that ached in her chest. Though she could have rightly walked into it again, Jaina understood the implications of their previous encounter. The looming bleakness of the forest trees was no more welcoming in her waking moments than they were in her dream.

Less so, it seemed.

So she sang. Some nights, she thought she heard a mournful tune call back from the boundless dark.

Katherine chided her strongly each time Jaina sang from her window. “You do not understand the weight your voice carries on land. You sing to this creature and you welcome her into our home; don't you remember why it is we fear the wail of a banshee?”

Jaina shook her head. “She does not wail, Mother. She sings. Is it so wrong that I sing back?”

“Is a siren's song on the seas not a death march to those who ride its waves?” Katherine said harshly. “Has she beguiled you so with her Glamour that you cannot see this wicked game she's tempted you into?”

For all her protest, Jaina found her mother beyond reasoning.

Katherine Proudmoore gave her daughter a firm glare, lips pressed tightly together. “There will be no more songs from your window,” she warned. “I will not hear your voice on the winds, or I will have them nailed shut if I must.”

“I'm not a child!” Jaina protested, but Katherine shook her head.

“No more songs,” her mother echoed gravely. “No more, my daughter, or she will steal you away.”

There were nights when the moon was its fullest; when the stars were swallowed by the rolling fog. Those nights, she would hear singing from between the trees.

The song of the Banshee.

It came from the sea and it came from the woods. It came from very depths of the waters and from the very tops of the trees. Those nights, mothers pulled their children close and men barred the doors to their homes. Sailors tied themselves to the ship masts and plugged their ears with rags.

Jaina?

Jaina climbed to the tallest tower of Proudmoore Keep, and listened.

Some told stories of its horrid wail; the sound that called the waves into a storm and led the ships into the rocky shores.

Others spoke of a woman’s lament, a croon of temptation and a tune of desire that drove sailors to the briny depths in want.

Jaina heard a song.

She felt something rising in the air; encompassing the placid swell of ocean waves and the idle sway of the dancing wind amidst the trees. A deep, weighted sensation of growing anticipation — apprehension — of...something Jaina could not place.

She knew the electric bloom of storms; knew the roiling shift of the tides before a flood.

The stifling weight of something crawled into the space of her mind and she shivered.

She had known many things to fear as Daughter of the Sea. Knew them, and embraced them, for a sailor who feared the roiling tides would surely down beneath them.

But this feeling...Jaina could not place. Fear was not an unfamiliar friend.

What was this, then, if it was not fear?


End file.
